A Conservative minister has been accused of “flat out lying” over the possibility of Turkey joining the EU, as she campaigns for Britain to vote to leave the bloc.
Penny Mordaunt, the armed forces minister, said the UK “does not” have a veto over the decision to allow new states such as Turkey to accede to the EU – despite it being a key part of the Treaty of the European Union.
The minister has endorsed a controversial new Vote Leave campaign poster which shows dirty footprints entering an enlarged British passport with the caption: “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU”.
Challenged on this claim during an interview on the Andrew Marr Show, Ms Mordaunt said: “This is our last chance to have a say on this, we’re not going to be consulted on whether those countries should join. Those countries are going to join, it is a matter of when.”
Marr suggested this was wrong, given “the British government does have a veto on Turkey joining, so we don’t have to let them join”.
Ms Mordaunt replied: “No, it doesn’t. We are not going to be able to have a say.”
Marr was forced to return to the issue at the end of the interview to clarify Ms Morduant’s point. He said: “I’m going to return to this business, because I’m pretty sure that we do have a veto over stopping Turkey joining if we want to. Are you sure that we don’t?
Ms Morduant said: “We haven’t… I think that with the current situation, the migrant crisis and other issues in Europe at the moment, we would be unable to stop Turkey joining.
“I think this is a matter for the British people to decide, and the only shot that they will get to express a view on this is in this referendum… I don’t think that the UK will be able to stop Turkey joining.”
David Cameron has responded to Ms Mordaunt's claims, saying they are "absolutely wrong" and calling his own minister's judgement into question.
He told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "Let me be clear, Britain and every other country in the European Union has a veto on another country joining.
"That is a fact, and the fact that the Leave campaign are getting things as straightforward as this wrong should call in to question their whole judgment in making the bigger argument about leaving the EU."
Thomas Cole, a former foreign policy official with the EU Commission who now campaigns for Remain, said: “Penny Mordaunt just lied on Andew Marr. I should know. I used to work on EU enlargement.”
Faisal Islam, Sky News’ political editor, said the minister’s comments on the programme were “straightforwardly not true”. He reproduced Article 49 of the EU treaty, on countries applying to become a new member of the union, which states: “The applicant shall address its application to the Council, which shall at unanimously.”
Ben Wallace, one of Ms Mordaunt’s fellow Conservative MPs, said: “What Leave never mention is that accession states, including Turkey, can only join the EU with a unanimous vote of members. The veto applies.”
And Lucy Thomas, the deputy director of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, described Ms Mordaunt’s “lying about the UK’s veto” as “the definition of scaremongering”.
Elsewhere in the interview on Marr, Ms Mordaunt described the campaign to Remain as an “establishment stitch-up”. Some viewers were quick to point out the irony of such a statement coming from a minister within the Government.
Tweeting during Ms Mordaunt’s appearance, the official Vote Leave campaign account insisted “you can’t trust David Cameron on Turkey”, and posted a video showing Turkish MPs fighting in Parliament in Ankara.
