EU referendum: Boris Johnson’s Brexit battle bus begins its UK tour in Cornwall

De facto leader of the Leave EU campaign talks immigration in Truro

Former Mayor of London Boris Johnson travels on the Vote Leave campaign bus in Cornwall (PA)

Would-be migrants should only be able to come to the UK once they have a formal job officer, according to Boris Johnson, who is no longer Mayor of London and is now the de facto leader of the Leave EU campaign.

“This whole idea of completely unconstrained movement is not the law of Medes and the Persians,” he said, in a biblical reference to the book of Daniel, meaning it is not a law that can never be changed or amended. “It's not something the EU was founded on - that's a myth. I remember before the Maastricht treaty, certainly going to work on the continent, you had to go to the commune and show you had a job. One of the disappointing things about the renegotiation is that we didn't push harder on the idea that you had to have a job offer before you came here. That seems to be a perfectly sensible step.”

Mr Johnson was speaking in Cornwall as the new Vote Leave battle bus began a tour of the UK. Meeting voters in Truro, he took two licks of a specially renamed ‘Boris’ clotted cream ice cream, then handed it back to a 75-year-old woman to finish. He brandished a handful of Cornish Asparagus at a local market, in front of a man holding a placard saying ‘Blaming Immigrants Just Lets Tories Off The Hook.’

Earlier, he had stood on the steps of the vehicle and proudly waved a Cornish Pasty for the assembled photographers, an item that is one of few across the continent to be awarded special EU-protected status, meaning it cannot be made anywhere else and called a Cornish Pasty, a designation that is crucial to the livelihoods of its Cornish producers.

Boris Johnson salutes the crowd with a Cornish pasty as he boards the Vote Leave campaign bus in Truro, Cornwall (PA)

Net migration to the UK currently stands at more than 300,000. Mr Johnson said that leaving the EU would not necessarily mean the level of immigration would have to come down.

“I wouldn’t want to set a figure. You need to look at each sector and you need to look at what the needs of the economy are,” he said.

“One of the things we're saying is that if you continue with the living wage and uncontrolled immigration you will get huge numbers. I think when you have control, there should be ways of saying if you don't have the job offer, if you don't have the right qualifications, just as you can be turned away from the United States or Australia, you could be turned away from the United kingdom.”

Polls indicate that lowering net migration is the single most important issue for those intending to vote to leave the EU. Even in the event of such a vote, there is no reason to imagine migration levels would fall at all for at least two years, the minimum time it would take for Britain to negotiate its way out of the EU. The actual time may be far longer. Several European diplomats have indicated freedom of movement of people would be a condition of entry into the single market, on which thousands of British businesses depend.

“Politicians, if they're going to have a pro-migration policy, should take responsibility for it, stand up and explain why they want hundreds of thousands as opposed to tens of thousands and then say it,” Mr Johnson said.

“I think we've got a crazy situation now where we can't control immigration from the 28 countries in the EU.

We are very tough on people coming from former Commonwealth countries or China or the ones who might pay a huge amount to study in our universities. Similarly people who might work in the NHS and so on. It's just not a balanced policy, it's not coherent.”

The anti-EU tour bus, which cost £400,000 rolls into Dorset on Thursday. It was manufactured in Poland by a German company. Pro-EU campaigners have claimed the same vehicle would be £56,000 more expensive in the event of the UK leaving the EU.

Asked if he would be prepared to take part in a one on one debate Gordon Brown over the EU referendum, he said: “I’m up for anything.”

Mr Brown is making a second speech on the matter in as many days on Thursday.