Monday, May 9, 2016

Cameron on 'Brexit': 'Isolationism has never served this country well'

British Prime Minister David Cameron has outlined his "big, bold, patriotic case" for the UK to stay in the European Union, saying that the country would be weaker and less-equipped to combat terrorism if it voted to leave.
In a speech Monday at the British Museum in London, Cameron argued that Britain's strength and security was inextricably linked to events in Europe -- and its ability to wield influence there.
"Britain has always been a European power, and we always will be," he said.
"Isolationism has never served this country well. Whenever we turn our back on Europe, sooner or later we come to regret it. We've always had to go back in and always at a much higher cost."
Cameron is campaigning for the public to vote to remain in the EU in a referendum on the issue June 23.
"This is a decision also about our place in the world, about how we keep our country safe, how Britain can get things done in Europe and across the world and not just accept a world dictated by others," he said.

    'Liberal cosmopolitan' case for leaving

    Cameron spoke hours before Boris Johnson, the colorful Conservative member of Parliamentand former London mayor, delivered an important speech in London outlining his case for why Britons should vote for a "Brexit," or British exit from the EU.
    Backers of the Vote Leave campaign have focused on immigration in recent weeks, with senior government figures arguing that migrants from the EU are overloading crucial public services.
    But Johnson, one of Britain's most popular politicians, took a different tack, making what he called the "liberal cosmopolitan case to Vote Leave."
    British lawmaker Boris Johnson makes his case for leaving the EU Monday.He said he spoke for "people who love Europe and who feel at home on the continent, but whose attitudes towards the project of European Union have been hardening over time," frustrated by what he called its "anti-democratic absurdities."
    He said the EU had "changed out of all recognition," that it eroded British democracy and was responsible for unnecessary regulation that stifled Britain.
    "To keep insisting that the EU is about economics is like saying the Italian Mafia is interested in olive oil and real estate."
    Johnson said that leaving the EU was not the same thing as leaving Europe.
    "Of all the arguments they make, this is the one that infuriates me the most. I am a child of Europe. I am a liberal cosmopolitan and my family is a genetic U.N. peacekeeping force," he said, referring to his diverse ancestry.
    "I find it offensive, insulting, irrelevant and positively cretinous to be told -- sometimes by people who can barely speak a foreign language -- that I belong to a group of small-minded xenophobes. Because the truth is it is Brexit that is now the great project of European liberalism, and I am afraid that it is the European Union -- for all the high ideals with which it began, that now represents the ancien regime."

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