Boris Johnson defends his secret pro-EU column calling it 'semi-parodic'

• Video report by ITV News Correspondent Jenny Longden

Boris Johnson claimed the secret column he wrote urging Britain to stay in the European Union two days before declaring himself as a Brexit supporter was “semi-parodic”.

The Foreign Secretary defended the piece and told ITV News he had been “wrestling” with the debate and wrote it after laying out an argument "in favour of leaving”.

He wrote the previously unpublished piece just two days before becoming a leading figure in the Brexit campaign.

Speaking outside his house today, Johnson said: “I then thought I better see if I can make the alternative case for myself; so I then wrote a sort of semi-parodic article in the opposite sense.

"It has mysteriously found its way into the paper this morning because I think I might have sent it to a friend."

In the piece, Johnson described Britain’s membership of the EU as “a boon for the world” and said the “membership fee seems rather small for all that access (to the single market)”.

He said of the two arguments: “But I set them side by side and it was blindingly obvious what the right thing to do was, and I think the people made the right decision.

“They voted very substantially to leave the European Union; that is what we're going to do and we're going to make a great success of it.”