14 April 2016

Financial Times: Why the Brexit crowd wants to silence Obama

Barack Obama is due in London next week. Encouraged by his host David Cameron, the US president is likely to intimate that he thinks Britain would be barmy to vote itself out of the EU. Detached from their own continent, the Brits would not find sanctuary in Washington. So much for the pro-Brexit crowd’s promise that Britain can swap Europe for the world.

There is nothing new about US presidents confronting their British cousins with some of the harsh realities of power. For decades British eagerness to promote a “special relationship” has rubbed up against a US drive to promote European integration. Tortuous is a fair description of much of the consequent transatlantic diplomacy. [...]

The fact of the matter is that the White House thinks EU membership is good for Britain, good for Europe and good for the US.

Whatever Mr Obama’s precise formulation, his stance, shared by postwar Republican and Democratic presidents alike, has already raised the ire of the Leave campaign. It has launched a petition against “US interference”. Never mind that the Outers hold up Atlanticism as the happy alternative to EU entanglement. The veteran sceptic John Redwood compares Brexit with America’s revolutionary war against King George III. A sense of perspective is not one of the sceptics’ strong points.

That said, you can see why the Out campaign is alarmed by Mr Obama’s interventions. His position thrusts a dagger into the heart of the Brexit case that, unshackled from the EU, Britain would assume a bigger global role. It explodes the flawed notion that there is a choice to be made between the English Channel and the Atlantic. Instead, Mr Obama makes the case that a leadership role on its own continent serves to amplify rather than diminish Britain’s voice in Washington and in other world capitals. [...]

The best the Leave campaign can answer is that all these friends and allies are, well, just wrong. [...]

This week the International Monetary Fund said a Leave vote would severely damage the economy and pose a risk to global growth. The Leave campaign’s response? The IMF is wrong — just like the equally independent OECD, the Paris-based forum of mostly rich nations, the governor of the Bank of England and most professional economists. Oh, and never mind that Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of Nato, thinks EU membership enhances Britain’s security.

The voters, of course, may decide to weigh the evidence presented by those who wish Britain well. They have it from the US president that the Atlanticist “alternative” to the EU is a delusion. The price of intimacy in Washington is influence in Europe. Britain’s capacity to promote its global interests would be diminished by Brexit and the nation would be poorer for it. Ask the IMF or the OECD. Now you know why the Brexiteers are so annoyed with Mr Obama.

Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)

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