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Greece 'should leave Eurozone' says Boris Johnson

Gavin Cordon,Pa
Monday 20 June 2011 04:03 EDT
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Greece should be allowed to default on its debts and leave the euro, London Mayor Boris Johnson has said.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson said the single currency had been responsible for having "exacerbated" the international financial crisis.

He warned the Government that Britain should not be expected to contribute to any new bail-out of the crisis-stricken Greek economy.

Mr Johnson is among a growing number of Conservative politicians who believe that Greece should now be left to go its own way.

"For years, European governments have been saying that it would be insane and inconceivable for a country to leave the euro," he wrote.

"But this second option is now all but inevitable, and the sooner it happens the better."

He suggested that the Greece's profligate behaviour - running up debts it could not pay - had been encouraged by its membership of the eurozone.

"The euro has exacerbated the financial crisis by encouraging some countries to behave as recklessly as the banks themselves," he said.

"We are supposedly engaging in this bail-out system to protect the banks, including our own. But as long as there is the fear of default, as long as the uncertainty continues, confidence will not return across the whole of Europe."

Earlier Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander said that the eurozone countries were dealing with the issue of the Greek bail-out and did not expect Britain to be asked to contribute.

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