Boris Johnson's Turkish cousin says the leader of the Brexit camp has turned into “such a Little Englander” he is no longer “being very honest about his views”.
Mr Johnson is the great-grandson of the newspaper editor and Turkish Government minister Ali Kemal, who was assassinated in 1922 after falling foul of Mustafa Atatürk who founded the modern Turkish state.
In an interview with the Irish Times Sinan Kuneralp, who is Mr Johnson’s cousin once removed, said the former London mayor's current stance would mean “his own grandfather wouldn’t have been able to come to the UK.”
And he questioned the sincerity of his views.
“To become such a Little Englander is silly,” said Mr Sinan. “His family is as cosmopolitan as it gets!
“He doesn’t strike me as being very honest about his views. I think he’s playing at populism. He’s worth much more than this.”
Mr Sinan suggested there were marked similarities between Mr Johnson and his grandfather.
“Boris’s great-grandfather was a born opponent. He was against everything, he was controversial, a contrarian.”
But he added: “Boris has a sense of humour, which our grandfather didn’t.”
Mr Johnson is the descendent of Ali Kemal’s first wife, an Anglo-Swiss woman called Winifred Brun, who died after giving birth to Boris’s grandfather.
Her son was originally called Osman Kemal, but his name was changed to Wilfred Johnson, due to anti-Turkish sentiment in England prior to the First World War. Otherwise Mr Johnson would be called Boris Kemal.
However Mr Sinan said he would still be “very happy” if Mr Johnson became Britain’s next Prime Minister.
“But, I can’t say I’d see eye-to-eye with his politics,” he said.
