UK Referendum: Alliance for Brexit Builds Up Across Party Lines
As Britain heads for the June referendum, the question of country’s membership in the European Union is pitting the political establishment and the mainstream media against a rising tide of public sentiment against the Brussels, deepened by recent Eurozone debt crisis and EU’s inability to regulate mass migration.
The present policy paralysis within the EU on migrant crisis has once again revealed the vulnerabilities of the European project — geared towards expansionism and bureaucratic centralization. Conservative EU parliamentarian and prominent ‘Eurosceptic’, Daniel Hannan said, “the alternative to remaining in a structurally unsafe building is, of course, walking out.”
The call for referendum, announced last week, has also exposed the rifts within Prime Minister David Cameron’s ruling Conservative Party, with six cabinet ministers and other leading conservatives coming out in support of Britain’s exit from the European Union, Brexit. However, the biggest blow to Prime Minister Cameron’s pro-EU camp came from London Mayor Boris Johnson’s surprise announcement to back the Brexit campaign.
Prime Minister Cameron, who came to power after a stunning victory just nine months ago, knows fully well that his political future is at stake if he fails to persuade majority of the British public to back his pro-EU campaign. Felling let down by honchos of his own party, Prime Minister Cameron took an aim at Mayor Boris Johnson during his appearance at the Parliament on Monday, even accusing the London’s Mayor of eying the Prime Minister’s job. The Telegraph reports:
The Conservative truce over the European Union referendum on Monday collapsed as the Prime Minister attacked Boris Johnson and Cabinet ministers openly criticised one another.In a sign of the deepening divisions over the in-out referendum, David Cameron used a Commons [lower-house of the Parliament] appearance to openly condemn Mr Johnson, who on Sunday announced that he would campaign to take Britain of the EU.Mr Cameron suggested that Mr Johnson made his decision simply in order to further his own ambition to become prime minister.The Prime Minister is said to be “livid” with Mr Johnson, who on Monday indicated that Mr Cameron and his allies are “wildly exaggerating” when they claim that a “Brexit” would be a “leap in the dark”.
Boris Johnson too had some harsh words for Prime Minister’s pro-EU stance. Writing for The Telegraph on Monday, he called the unchecked over-reach by EU bureaucracy a “process of legal colonisation” of Britain and accused Brussels of “infiltrating just about every area of public policy” in the country.
According to the polls quoted by London-based newspaper The Express, Boris Johnson’s throwing his hat in the ring for Brexit has “massively boosted the chances of Britain quitting the EU.”
The political charge against the unelected EU Bureaucracy led by Nigel Farage’s United Kingdom Independence party (UKIP), has now been joined by prominent backers from UK’s Conservative and Labour Party in the run-up to the European referendum.
Prime Minister Cameron’s campaign has its backers too. Campaign to remain in the EU is getting support from those big businesses, that have been recipients of EU contracts, subsidies and concession, as well as the left-leaning mainstream media. The Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has also endorsed the campaign to stay in the EU.
The next four months will not only be crucial for Britain’s destiny as a free and independent nation, but also for the future of the European Union as a whole. A Brexit could encourage other member states to opt out of a out-dated political project that has reached its limited in the wake of the ongoing migrant crisis.
Video: Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan making a case for Brexit
[Cover image courtesy CBS News, YouTube screenshot]
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