Same speech. Different person delivering it.

There was nothing new in what Donald Tusk said today.  In fact it was almost word for word what I noted back in January that Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, said “The whole of European civilisation is under grave threat and the region must stick together in its own self-defence”, warning that the departure of the UK would be a fatal blow. "It would be a tragedy," he said. 

Really?   Yes, he really did say that, "civilisation is under grave threat".

Now, at the time, I had no idea that the UK was that important, so important that civilisation itself could collapse if we left the EU.  If our remaining was that important the EU would surely have given our prime minister more than the meagre crumbs they left under the table for him at what we can now look back on as laughable “negotiations”

So what did Donald Tusk say? “As a historian I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilization in its entirety.”

I can’t help but agree with Priti Patel when she says:  “This is extraordinary language from the EU president, and serves only to reveal his own desperation.  The only thing that is destroying civilizations is the Euro – which has ruined economies and led to youth unemployment soaring to nearly 50% in southern Europe.”