Richard Drax writes (July 5th) in praise of Boris Johnson, likely to be the next Prime Minister, who will solve Brexit.

Remember 2016? Lies, e.g.Turkey was about to join the EU, and impossible promises, e.g. £ 350 million for the NHS, infected the whole Brexit campaign, like a virus. Similar lies have run through our political life ever since. Never in the field of human politics have so many lies been told by so many under-informed British politicians, based on so few facts - as Churchill might have said.

Let me inform Mr Johnson and Mr Drax of a few inconvenient facts about the UK and the EU:

Only 1% of seasonal fruit and veg pickers are British; most are from the EU. 5% of slaughterhouse vets are British and the other 95% are from the EU 27. Where will we find pickers and vets after Brexit? Common drugs from insulin to Viagra are almost all imported from the EU. Signing new trade deals with non-EU medical suppliers is much more complicated than Boris Johnson would have you believe. Consider a possible future US - UK trade deal: the US is demanding the dismantling of EU food standards. Chlorinated chicken anyone?

Brexit will take many years to unfold, with complex negotiations, requiring a detailed grasp of all the facts involved. Is Mr Johnson well suited to understand this and deliver? Many companies will be rethinking their investment, manufacturing and employment policies. Some of the self-harm of Brexit is clearly measurable, but the most important damage is difficult to quantify. We can count job losses, factory closures and falling economic growth, but we cannot measure the long term damage to Britain's reputation and to our influence in the world.

So what are Boris Johnson's plans? He airily says that he is supremely confident that it will all work out well for us. Specifically, he calls for a massive tax cut for the rich and, when asked, guessed that the minimum wage was "at or around £ 10 an hour", when, in fact, it is £ 8.21. We see a candidate who knows little about the lives of those who are poor and seems not to care about them.

"Project fear" is the usual lazy, dismissive response from enthusiastic Brexiteers, to experts' assessment of the Brexit problems ahead. This is exactly Mr Drax's ill-informed response, in his column. So how will Boris Johnson handle these problems? In the past, he has shown himself to be a liar: he was dismissed by Michael Howard from his job in the shadow cabinet for lying and had been previously dismissed from his job on a newspaper, again for lying. As mayor of London he wasted millions on consultations for the ill-conceived Thames garden bridge project. As Foreign Secretary he was often short on detail and facts, becoming known for his diplomatic gaffes. He is least liked by those who know him best: his previous editor at the Daily Telegraph, Max Hastings, said "the Trouble with Boris is that he thinks he is Churchill, but he is really a stand-up comedian". Not a serious politician for a serious job. In our present political crisis we don't "Need Boris more than ever", as Mr Drax suggests, but rather, I would suggest we need Boris like we need a hole in the head i.e. not at all and certainly not now, to solve the biggest political crisis we have faced since the second world war.

John Tomblin,

Littlemoor Road,

Weymouth