The European commission has described a claim made by the Conservative leadership hopeful Dominic Raab about a key EU official’s views on Brexit as “fake, fraudulent and pure disinformation” after it was spread in an election campaign video.
Raab, who resigned as Brexit secretary last year over the deal struck with the EU, claimed in November that the commission’s secretary general, Martin Selmayr, had boasted that “losing Northern Ireland was the price the UK would pay for Brexit”.
The quote attributed by Raab to Selmayr has been used in a two-minute video posted on a Twitter account called NI in Union urging voters in Northern Ireland to support unionist parties in the European elections.
The video features images of bombings and says Northern Ireland has been “threatened before” and that voters should “stand up” and make their voice heard.
Stand up for Northern Ireland - Reject the Backstop
— NI in Union (@NI_Union) May 22, 2019
Use your Unionist vote TOMORROW! 🗳️ pic.twitter.com/Rgo0FbLAQD
The European commission’s chief spokesman tweeted on Thursday: “The sentence attributed to the @EU_Commission secretary general at 1:16 of this video is fake, fraudulent and pure disinformation that has been spread maliciously.”
The EU’s deputy chief Brexit negotiator, Sabine Weyand, who dealt with Raab during his brief tenure as Brexit secretary, tweeted: “We have homegrown disinformation in the EU, and we have to fight that just as we have to fight any foreign disinformation campaigns.”
Raab is second to Boris Johnson in polls of Tory members on who should be the next leader.
In his comments in November he accused Brussels of seeking to bully Britain. “You would hear swirling around in Brussels – particularly the people around Selmayr, Martin Selmayr in the commission, and some others – that losing Northern Ireland was the price the UK would pay for Brexit,” he said.
“This was reported to me through the diplomatic channel. It is one thing to defend your interests robustly, but there is another thing in the spirit of so-called European unity to be trying to carve up a major European nation.”
Selmayr responded at the time denying the claim. “This is false,” he said. “It may be a story that some want to hear, but it is still false. We have never said this.”
