MAYOR of London and Brexit campaign leader Boris Johnson visited the North-East yesterday. Joanna Morris had a front-row seat.

THE ripples of excitement built to become boisterous chants as Boris Johnson made his way into a packed room at Newcastle’s Centre for Life.

As the on-message Boris Johnson painted a utopian vision of the UK without the EU, he repeatedly urged supporters to “take control” and “give Britain back its freedom”.

Placard-waving crowds, standing ovations and the assertion of June 24 as Britain’s Independence Day added to the slightly surreal Americanism of the rally.

A brief outbreak of dissent saw a small pocket of anti-Tory protestors quickly bundled out of the vicinity by Johnson’s keen team, as impassioned Brexit campaigners booed loudly in front of TV cameras.

The well-rehearsed staples of the anti-EU campaign were then reiterated throughout a frantically-paced speech.

Much was made of fabled legislation around bent bananas and the apparent absurdity in bureaucrats attempting to control the ‘suckity’ of Britain’s vacuum cleaners.

Barmy, Brussels bureaucrats and meddling Eurocrats also made an appearance, with the Remain campaign accused of scaremongering tactics.

Though his comedic turn of phrase drew laughter, this was no comedy turn but instead a concerted effort to get the region on-board.

He worked to reassure those present that Brexit was backed by business and would improve, rather than impact upon, the local economy.

Addressing Nissan and Hitachi’s reluctance to support an EU-exit, he said: “Both companies in the last few months announced major investment in the North-East.

“If they were really unhappy to leave, they would have put off that announcement.

“The North-East is a great place to invest with talented, hardworking people.

“When we leave the EU, it will still be a great place to invest.”

He insisted a vote to leave would lead to the improvement of the NHS, farming regulations and issues around immigration.

Following his speech, I spoke briefly to a less-jovial Mr Johnson.

In the surroundings of the partially EU-funded Centre for Life, I asked him how he would protect the region’s culture.

The North-East’s cultural economy receives significant EU funding – worth £724m to projects like Beamish, the Angel of the North and The Sage between 2014 and 2020.

Mr Johnson dismissed hard-hitting government and local authority cuts to culture in the region by saying everything “looks fantastic” and dismissed the concept of EU-funding itself.

He said: “What is really happening is that British taxpayers’ money is being spent in the North-East by EU bureaucrats.

“What we would get if we leave is the ability to spend far more of our own money because not only would we have back that £10billion currently spent in this country by the EU, we’d have another £10billion that is currently being frittered on all sorts of nonsense.

“We guarantee the funding that is currently coming but you would have extra funding on top.

“That’s not just for culture – that’s for everything.”

Ahead of Boris Johnson’s appearance, Newcastle’s MP Chi Onwurah, Hexham’s MP Guy Opperman and city council leader Nick Forbes issued statements urging people to rethink support of the Vote Leave campaign.

The Britain Stronger in Europe group had their campaign bus parked in Newcastle throughout the day.