London Mayor Says Obama Dislikes the UK Due to His Kenyan Blood

U.S. President Barack Obama received strong criticism from London mayor Boris Johnson after the former weighed in on the increasingly poisonous EU debate on Friday. However Prime Minister David Cameron, who wants to remain in the EU, said the matter is in the hands of the British electorate during a press conference with Obama. 

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Johnson, who is one of leading figures of the out campaign, writing for British tabloid The Sun, said the part Kenyan Obama has an “ancestral dislike of the British empire.”

The lawmaker pointed to the removal of a bust of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill from the oval office, when Obama was elected in 2009, as evidence for distaste of the U.K.

“We are are giving 20 billion pounds (about US$13.3 billion) a year, or 350 million pounds (US$234 million) a week, to Brussels — about half of which is spent by EU bureaucrats in this country, and half we never see again,” the Conservative politician wrote on Friday.

“We have lost control of our borders to Brussels; we have lost control of our trade policy; and with every year that passes we see the EU take control of more and more areas of public policy.”

The Labour Party’s Diane Abbott branded the comments "offensive" and a spokesman for the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign said Johnson’s decision to mention Obama’s Kenyan ancestry was "shameful stuff.”

During a Friday press conference with Cameron, Obama said that if Britain left the European Union there may eventually be a commerce agreement between the two countries, but that Britain would be at the back of the queue for a trade deal.

"And the UK is going to be in the back of the queue not because we don't have a special relationship but because given the heavy lift on any trade agreement, us having access to a big market with a lot of countries rather than trying to do piecemeal trade agreements is hugely efficient," the president said. 

Johnson's piece was a repost to an article penned by Obama in the Daily Telegraph, a traditional bastion of euroscepticism. The president argued that Britain's place in the EU magnified its global influence and was a matter of "deep interest" to the United States.

"I realize that there's been considerable speculation -- and some controversy -- about the timing of my visit," Obama wrote.

Stressing that the choice was purely for the British people, he wrote: "I will say, with the candor of a friend, that the outcome of your decision is a matter of deep interest to the United States.

"Tens of thousands of Americans who rest in Europe's cemeteries are a silent testament to just how intertwined our prosperity and security truly are.

"And the path you choose now will echo in the prospects of today's generation of Americans."

Before the press conference Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama lunched at Windsor Castle with Queen Elizabeth II, who turned 90 on Thursday.

The U.K. will stage a referendum on whether to remain in the EU on June 23.