Obama: EU stronger if UK stays - BBC News

US President Barack Obama has talked about the importance of the UK continuing to play a strong role on the international stage.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC's North American Editor Jon Sopel, President Obama said: "Having the UK in the European Union gives us much greater confidence about the strength of the transatlantic union." He added: "We want to make sure that the United Kingdom continues to have that influence."

[infinitecanadian]

The European Union may be better off with Great Britain, but Great Britain may be better off without the European Union.

[andej]

10 Reasons to Leave

Why we should leave: The top ten reasons we would be BETTER OFF OUT…
 
1.     Freedom to make stronger trade deals with other nations.  

2.     Freedom to spend UK resources presently through EU membership in the UK to the advantage of our citizens.

3.     Freedom to control our national borders.

4.     Freedom to restore Britain’s special legal system.

5.     Freedom to deregulate the EU’s costly mass of laws.

6.     Freedom to make major savings for British consumers.

7.     Freedom to improve the British economy and generate more jobs.

8.     Freedom to regenerate Britain’s fisheries.

9.     Freedom to save the NHS from EU threats to undermine it by harmonising healthcare across the EU, and to reduce welfare payments to non-UK EU citizens. 

10.   Freedom to restore British customs and traditions.

[Infernal]

Its not your place Obama to tell UK citizens what to do.

[andej]

10 MYTHS about the EU (each followed by the reality)

1. BRITAIN WOULD LOSE THREE MILLION JOBS IF WE LEFT THE EU

– If Britain withdrew from the EU it would preserve the benefits of trade with the EU by imposing a UK/EU Free Trade Agreement.

– The EU sells a lot more to us than we sell to them. In 2011 there was a trade deficit of nearly £50bn, which had risen to £109.2bn by 2014. It seems unlikely that the EU would seek to disrupt a trade which is so beneficial to itself.

– Moreover, the Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the EU must make a trade agreement with a country which leaves the EU.

– World Trade Organization (WTO) rules lay down basic rules for international trade by which both the EU and UK are obliged to abide. These alone would guarantee the trade upon which most of those 3 million jobs rely.

2. BRITAIN WILL BE EXCLUDED FROM TRADE WITH THE EU BY TARIFF BARRIERS

-The EU has free trade agreements with 53 countries to overcome such tariffs, and is negotiating a further 74 such agreements.

-EU now exempts services and many goods from duties anyway. In 2009 UK charged customs duty of just 1.76% on non-EU imports. This is so low that the EU Common Market is basically redundant as a customs union with tariff walls.

3. BRITAIN CANNOT SURVIVE ECONOMICALLY OUTSIDE THE EU IN A WORLD OF TRADING BLOCS

-Major economies eg. Japan (the world’s 3rd largest) are not in a trading bloc.

-The EU is not the place where most economic growth is occurring. The EU’s share of world GDP is forecast to decline to 15% in 2020, down from 26% in 1980.

-Norway and Switzerland are not in the EU, yet they export far more per capita to the EU than the UK does; this suggests that EU membership is not a prerequisite for a healthy trading relationship.

-Furthermore, Britain’s best trading relationships are generally not within the EU, but outside, i.e. with countries such as the USA and Switzerland.

-The largest investor in the UK is not even an EU country, but the US.

4. THE EU IS MOVING TOWARDS THE UK’S POSITION ON CUTTING REGULATION AND BUREAUCRACY

-EU directives are subject to a ‘rachet’ effect – i.e. once in place they are highly unlikely to be reformed or repealed.

-Less than 10% of Britain’s GDP represents trade with the EU yet Brussels regulations afflict 100% of our economy (the 5th largest in the world)

-80% of the UK’s GDP is generated within the UK so at least 80% (90% if trade with rest of the world included) need not be subject to EU laws.

-In 2006 it was estimated that EU over-regulation costs 600bn Euros across the EU each year.

-In 2010, Open Europe estimated EU regulation had cost Britain £124 billion since 1998.

-Whilst Red tape savings are not direct cash savings, deregulation would result in a true ‘bonfire of regulations’ that could fund either sizeable tax cuts or additional public spending.

5. IF WE LEAVE, BRITAIN WILL HAVE TO PAY BILLIONS TO THE EU AND IMPLEMENT ALL ITS REGULATIONS WITHOUT HAVING A SAY

-We have very little say within the EU, and would have far more leverage outside EU as an independent sovereign nation and the world’s 6th largest economy.

-The UK currently has only 8.4% of voting power ‘say’ in the EU, and the Lisbon Treaty ensured the loss of Britain’s veto in many more policy areas.

-Britain’s 72 MEPs are a minority within the 736 in the European Parliament (worsening to 73 out of 751 owing to Lisbon changes).

-With further enlargement (Croatia, Turkey’s 79 million citizens), British influence would be further watered down.

-As for continuing contributions by an independent Britain, Swiss and Norwegian examples show that the UK would achieve substantial net savings.

SWISS CASE STUDY:

Official Swiss government figures conclude that through their trade agreements with the EU, the Swiss pay the EU under 600 million Swiss Francs a year, but enjoy virtually free access to the EU market. The Swiss have estimated that full EU membership would cost Switzerland net payments of 3.4 billion Swiss francs a year.

NORWAY CASE STUDY:

Norway only had to make relatively few changes to its laws to make its products eligible for the EU marketplace. In 2009, the Norwegian Mission to the EU estimated that Norway’s total financial contribution linked to their EEA (European Economic Area) agreement is some 340 mn Euros a years, of which some 110mn Euros are contributions related to the participation in various EU programmes. However, this is a fraction of the gross annual cost that Britain must pay for EU membership which is now £18.4bn, or £51mn a day.

6. THE EU HAVE BROUGHT PEACE TO THE EUROPEAN CONTINENT

The Reality:

-Even now, the EU is only 27 nations of the 47 European nations listed as national members of the Council of Europe.

-The forerunner to the EU, the Common Market, didn’t come into existence until 1958, and then only with 6 nations, and yet there was no war between European countries from 1945 to 1956 (except the Hungarian revolution). Whilst peaceful international cooperation is welcomed at all levels, to say the EU is the sole guarantor of peace is an extreme exaggeration that is dishonest in its application.

-It is NATO, founded in 1949 and dominated by the USA, and not the EU, that has actually kept the peace in Europe, together with parliamentary democracy. Both of which are being undermined by the EU.

-The former German President Herzog wrote a few years ago that ‘the question has to be raised of whether Germany can still unreservedly be called a parliamentary democracy’. This was owing to the number of German laws emanating from the EU- which he assessed at some 84%.

-The break up of Yugoslavia was a major test of the EU’s ability to keep the peace. It was EU interference that helped trigger a major civil war and its dithering contributed to deaths of some 100, 000 people. It was only decisive action by the US/NATO forces that stopped the violence. Peace was established by the US-brokered Dayton Agreement.

7. THE EU HAS A POSITIVE IMPACT ON THE BRITISH ECONOMY

-British industries such as fishing, farming, postal services and manufacturing have already been devastated by Britain’s membership of the EU.

-EU membership costs UK billions of pounds and large numbers of lost jobs thanks to unnecessary and excessive red tape, substantial membership and aid contributions, inflated consumer prices and other associated costs.

– The Common Fisheries Policy has cost British coastal communities 115, 000 jobs (Lee Rotherham, 10 years on)

8. BRITAIN WILL LOSE VITAL FOREIGN INVESTMENT AS A CONSEQUENCE OF LEAVING THE EU

-In a 2010 survey on UK’s attractiveness to foreign investors, Ernst and Young found Britain remained the number one Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) destination in Europe owing largely to the City of London and the UK’s close corporate relationship with the US. EU membership was not mentioned at all in their table of key investment factors, which were (in order of importance): UK culture and values and the English language; telecommunications infrastructure; quality of life; stable social environment, and transport and logistics infrastructure.

-In any case, open access to the EU market would continue through a Free Trade Agreement in the manner of Switzerland and Norway whilst the UK would gain from higher growth, less regulation, more public spending and/or lower taxes and more suitable trade deals.

9. BRITAIN WILL LOSE ALL INFLUENCE IN THE WORLD BY BEING OUTSIDE THE EU

-Britain has a substantial ‘portfolio of power’ in its own right, which includes membership of the G20 and G8 Nations, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (one of only 5 members) and seats on the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors and World Trade Organisation.

-The UK also lies at heart of the Commonwealth of 54 nations. Moreover, London is the financial capital of the world and Britain has the sixth largest economy. The UK is also in the top ten manufacturing nations in the world.

-Far from increasing British influence in the world, the EU is undermining UK influence. The EU is demanding there is a single voice for the EU in the UN and in the IMF. The EU has also made the British economy and City of London less competitive through overregulation, and negotiates more protectionist and less effective trade deals on behalf of the UK.

-The European External Action Service (EEAS) and its EU ‘Foreign Minister’ Federica Mogherini are undermining national diplomatic representation and the furtherance of British political and commercial interests through British embassies, which are being closed or downsized around the world.

-The Commonwealth is increasingly discriminated against by the EU policy on visas, so that non-EU Commonwealth citizens face having to obtain visas whilst citizens of even new EU entrants have automatic entry. Historic Commonwealth bonds with Britain are being lost.

10. LEGALLY, BRITAIN CANNOT LEAVE THE EU

-Technically, Britain could leave the EU in a single day. Legislatively, this would be achieved simply by repealing the European Communities Act 1972 and its attendant Amendment Acts through a single clause Bill passing through Westminster.

-If the British people voted to leave in an In/Out referendum or by voting in a party with EU withdrawal on its manifesto, Parliament would have to respect the will of the British people and there would be no justification for delay or obstruction in either House.

-However, the process of setting up a replacement UK/EU Free Trade Agreement will take longer, though there would be no need for time-consuming negotiation of tariff reductions if the UK/EU Free Trade Agreement merely replicated existing EU trade arrangements.

-In addition, even the Lisbon Treaty’s Article 50 enshrines the right of member states to leave the Union, albeit in an unattractive manner. The same article requires the EU to seek a free trade deal with a member which leaves. Greenland established a precedent for a sovereign nation by leaving the EEC in 1985, and is prospering well outside of it. With Westminster still sovereign (for the moment), it is the British Parliament who will decide how and when Britain leaves the EU.

[JackWalker]

Haters gonna hate but Obama told it like it is here, funny how Brits complained about him sticking his nose in their politics while they were begging New Zealand to keep their flag with the Union Jack in their flag referendum, Mr Brexit Nigel Farage jumped on stage with Trump in America encouraging to vote for him while Russians were interfering with US elections and thousands of Brits are living in Spain on the dole too lazy to learn Spanish. United Kingdom's EU referendum which was demanded and fueled for years by nationalist parties BNP(British Nazi Party) & UKIP(United Kingdom of idiocratic pissheads) who did nothing in European parliament at Brussels with low attendance rates, spending their membership salary on losing MP/local candidates and are now clearly irrelevant brought so much toxic and division in this country, such a shame most people were paying attention to trashy anti-immigrant rhetoric rag such as The Sun, Daily Express, Daily Mail and ridiculous conspiracy theories of the New World Order & Illuminati and a slim majority of voters by 1.9% brought the pack of lies they sold. It's turning out the vote leave campaign's fear-mongering claims are becoming oppositely true

Risk of TTIP - EU terminated negotiations months later and UK will probably face it just by themselves

Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania + Montenegro joining EU - Turkey cancelled accession while other countries are still far behind fulfilling criteria, with UK outside of EU they'll eventually be more associated with those countries

Reconnect with the Commonwealth - we still have strong relations and leaders of Australia, Canada + India vowed UK to stay in EU, there isn't much big trading blocs with our ex colonies compared to Europe and much to the dismay of knuckle-dragging Islamophobes, several Commonwealth countries are Muslim majority
 
And most ironic of all there's likely to be more immigration! Unelected Prime Minister Theresa May ruled out the points based system and was a poor home secretary when she failed to keep her border + migration promises. Trump & May are going to make Bush & Blair look like saints.

The working class will be most hurt by a hard Brexit especially areas that received hundred of millions in EU funding, now they're pending to be environmental wastelands and economic junkyards, with the Pound sterling at it's lowest rate in decades, hate crime significantly increasing and businesses/companies relocating to other countries while the shambolic Tory government is ready to turn the country into a global tax haven, dreamland for corporate elitist millionaires/billionaires, climate change denying capital of the world, slavery workfare for disabled people and European North Korea but the 48%, youth, entertainment, satire and educated/historian people will never stop rebelling!

[vulcangbr]

It seems like that age old thing, doesn't it? Where absolutely jack all is done until something prodigious happens. The EU is blind, and so are the people in support of the union, it has failed, it no longer stands as an image of democracy.

Nothing will change until we, one of the EU's main members leave, and if we do, just wait and see how quickly the organisation collapses.

Start closer economic ties with the anglosphere, specifically with our commonwealth allies.

[strawberryfields]

He couldn’t do anything for us in the U.S., so I wouldn’t heed his advice.

[jamesmaguire]

keep your nose out we don't tell u what to do with your country don't tell us what to do with ours

[nikirk]

i think texas should be independant from the rest of the usa but as a uk citizen it is none of my bussiness so obama should keep his nose out of my country s affairs

[ToonandBBfan]

So would Obama like it if a Court in Mexico could over rule a court in the USA?      Or if he had to sign trade deals through bureaucrats in Honduras?      Now you know why we Brits are pissed off with the shitty EU      *PLEASE VOTE TO LEAVE*

[kevinkards]

it is none of his business tel the president to keep his nose out of UK businesses

[andej]

How the EU affects your life

For a thousand years the United Kingdom was free, independent and trading with the rest of the known world.
For the past 42 years, the United Kingdom has been part of the European Union (EEC and EC).  The UK’s ability to act as a nation state is being increasingly constricted to the point where the EU now dominates the UK. Some independence is left, importantly the British currency, but every day more power and more control ebbs away to Brussels.

Since the days of Edward Heath in the 1970s, all British governments of whichever party have assumed and continue to assume that Britain must be at the heart of Europe.  They even claim that the UK can have a positive influence, beyond its limited voting powers, to change the EU for the better, that is towards a free market group of nations co-operating together.

The UK cannot.

Europhiles maintain loudly that the UK is too small to prosper outside the EU, too small to go it alone.  Yet that belies our history, it belies the facts of our global trade and it belies the strength of our country.  It is also an insult to most countries of the world, smaller than the UK, which remain independent and free. Propagandists claim the EU will safeguard peace in Europe, yet creating a political and economic union of disparate and diverse countries within a generation or two creates fissures and tensions that could erupt into serious and widespread civil unrest and has already done so in Greece.

Europhiles say that the advantages of being inside the EU are so obvious that they are not willing even to discuss what life might be like outside the EU. They try to shut down debate by refusing to engage. Yet the financial costs alone are huge, the regulatory costs restrict and even destroy British trade, farming and fishing.  It is no exaggeration to say that more than a million jobs have been lost because of Britain’s membership of the EU.  How much more than a million?  No one knows.  No meaningful cost-benefit analysis has ever been done.

The EU is not a recipe for prosperity.  It is not a recipe for jobs.

The EU is encroaching on our criminal justice system eroding English common law and slicing away our protections against an overweening state.

The EU is not a recipe for freedom.  It promotes the power of the state over citizens.

The Better Off Out campaign is here to encourage, support and promote a great national debate on this most critical issue of our time.  It is here to counter the narrow propaganda of the last decades, which has so sapped our national strength to be independent.  It is here to promote British freedom and prosperity.

[thesheepman]

Do you know who funded the yes vote for common market USA and the CIA run the campaign for uk

[tommytimetelevision]

How is it stronger. My cousins in Holland business had to go close because of a problem 1200 km away in Greece.
This is another bogus invalid fear mongering forecast !

[grecosgreecedaz]

Obama shut up nothing do with you.i agree with boris what he said about obama he should keep his own house in order

[maxliga]

Th UK use benefits to keep people calm, that's your problem not the EU, smugness won't lead you a UK company wants to make a deal with a US one or Chinese they can say that they have a potential market of 700 millions people, otherwise it'd be 60 it clear and simple?