Hillary
Clinton urges Britain to remain in the European Union
US
presidential hopeful weighs in on forthcoming vote as No 10 welcomes
latest backing ahead of 23 June referendum
Toby Helm and Daniel
Boffey
Saturday 23 April
2016 21.00 BST
Hillary Clinton has
thrown her weight behind the campaign to keep Britain inside the
European Union in a major new boost to David Cameron’s hopes of
winning a Remain vote on 23 June.
After Barack Obama
used his farewell trip to the UK as president to make the economic
and security arguments for membership, Clinton, who is the favourite
to win the Democratic nomination in July and become the first female
US president, makes clear that if she enters the White House she will
want the UK to be fully engaged, and leading the debate, within the
EU.
In a statement to
the Observer, her senior policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, said:
“Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic cooperation is
essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united.
She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she
values a strong British voice in the EU.” Sources close to the
former secretary of state’s campaign said she stood fully behind
Obama’s opposition to Brexit, which the president said on Friday
would not only undermine the international institutions, including
the EU, that had bound nations closer together since 1945, but would
also mean the UK being at “the back of the queue” when
negotiating new trade deals.
Obama’s remarks
drew angry responses from leading figures in the Leave campaign,
including the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who questioned the
president’s right to intervene. Leading backers of Brexit also
tried to dismiss Obama’s view as that of a “lame duck president”
soon to be out of office.
The former Tory
defence secretary Liam Fox, a Brexit enthusiast, said on Friday night
that Obama’s opinions would be irrelevant after the US elections in
November. “Whoever it is that will be at the helm of the United
States won’t be Barack Obama,” Fox told BBC2’s Newsnight. “It
will be the next president, and the next congress, who will be in
charge of any trade arrangements.” But the Remain camp and No 10
sources said that such arguments had exploded in the faces of the
Brexit camp.
The Conservative MP
Damian Green, a board member of the Britain Stronger In Europe
campaign and the chairman of European Mainstream, said: “This shows
how misleading it is to say this is just the view of a president in
his last days in office. It confirms that mainstream political
opinion in the United States is in favour of Britain remaining in the
EU, and that the transatlantic values that we share with the US are
expressed most strongly in Europe by a fully engaged Britain.”
A No 10 source said:
“Not only do you have the serving US president setting out why the
UK is better off staying in the EU, but now those who aspire to be
president too. Hillary Clinton worked with the UK as secretary of
state for a number of years and saw first hand how the UK’s
influence was magnified by the role we played in the EU. When you
face a big decision in life, most people listen to their friends, and
we disregard such advice at our peril.”
The Republican
presidential hopeful Donald Trump has not offered a view on whether
he thinks the UK should stay in or leave the EU, although he has said
he believes there is a good chance the British people will vote for
Brexit, partly because of their unhappiness with levels of
immigration.
The Labour leader,
Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong critic of American foreign policy, held
talks with Obama during which the president congratulated him on
being elected leader and the two touched briefly on Europe. Corbyn
said they discussed “the challenges facing post-industrial
societies and the power of global corporations and the increasing use
of technology around the world and the effect that has”.
Earlier, addressing
an audience of 500 people, many aged between 18 and 30, at a town
hall-style event in central London, the president said that the UK’s
role in the EU had helped secure peace on the continent.
The president said
that “from the ashes of war” the UK and the US had formed
institutions that had delivered “decades of relative peace and
prosperity in Europe and that in turn have helped spread peace and
prosperity around the world”.
Obama urged the
young audience to reject isolationism and xenophobia. “I implore
you to reject those calls and I’m here to ask you to reject the
notions and take a longer and more optimistic view of history,” the
president said.
Obama leaves the UK
on Sunday for Germany, where he will attend Hanover’s industrial
technology fair. He will then hold talks with David Cameron, the
French president, François Hollande, German chancellor Angela
Merkel, and Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, during which
they will discuss the next phase of the war against Islamic State and
the unfolding chaos in Libya.
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