Cameron: Leaving EU will inflict 'real damage'
LONDON — British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday said that if the United Kingdom were to leave the European Union the move could threaten peace in Europe and negatively affect the nation's economy.
Cameron said in a speech in London that the U.K. is “better off, safer and stronger” in the EU. Isolationism "has never served this country well,” he said.
Britons will vote on whether to stay in the 28-nation political bloc in a referendum — dubbed Brexit — on June 23.
An average of the six most recent referendum polls conducted by What U.K. Thinks, an independent research firm, found 50% of voters would choose to remain in the bloc and 50% would opt to leave.
Cameron said the alliance has "helped reconcile countries which were at each other’s throats for decades.”
"Can we be so sure that peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt?” he said. “Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash as to make that assumption.
“Britain has a fundamental national interest in maintaining common purpose in Europe to avoid future conflict between European countries."
He added that leaving the EU “will inflict real damage” on the country and its economy. “Britain will suffer an immediate economic shock and be permanently poorer for the long term,” he said.
Cameron called the campaign to leave the bloc “a reckless and irresponsible cause” and said the onus is on those who want to leave “to prove that Britain will be better off outside the EU.”
“Britain has always been a European power and always will be,” Cameron said. “Whenever we turn our back on Europe, sooner or later we come to regret it.”
Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and a member of Parliament for Cameron’s Conservative Party, set out his case for Britain leaving the bloc in a speech Monday.
“The government should logically be campaigning on the leave side today,” Johnson said. “The EU system is a ratchet pulling us ever further into a federal structure."
Johnson said Britain could have free trade access to the single European market, which imposes no internal borders or obstacles to the free movement of goods and services, without being subject to its rules.
He said he believed Britons "would be mad not to take this once in a lifetime chance."
“We must stop the pretense. This is about politics and a political project that is now getting out of control,” he said.
“We wish to forge a new relationship based on free trade and intergovernmental cooperation. If we vote to leave the EU we will not be voting to leave Europe. I am a child of Europe,” he said.