Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
"Disadvantages of remaining in the EU outweigh any advantages"
The former chancellor of the exchequer, Lord Lawson, has called for the UK to leave the European Union.
Writing in the Times, he said British economic gains from an exit "would substantially outweigh the costs".
He predicted any changes achieved by David Cameron's attempts to renegotiate the terms of the UK's relations with the EU would be "inconsequential".
But Downing Street said the prime minister remained "confident" that his strategy "will deliver results".
Mr Cameron is facing calls to bring forward a promised referendum on the UK's EU membership.
'Warm embrace'He says he will hold a vote early in the next parliament - should the Conservatives win the next general election - but only after renegotiating the terms of the UK's relationship with the EU.
Analysis
Cabinet ministers took to the airwaves over the weekend to pledge draft legislation would be introduced on an EU referendum before the next election.
But if David Cameron thought that would appease those in the party who want to see a referendum sooner than 2017 he was wrong.
Now, Lord Lawson, Margaret Thatcher's long-serving chancellor, has stepped up the pressure by calling for the prime minister to lead the country out of the EU altogether.
His intervention is damaging for David Cameron. After losing support to UKIP in the local elections he wanted to get on the front foot over Europe.
Instead the issue has again exposed deep divisions within his party over the issue which dogged the leaderships of John Major, William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith before him.
However, Lord Lawson said any such renegotiations would be "inconsequential" as "any powers ceded by the member states to the EU are ceded irrevocably".
The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson said Lord Lawson's intervention was a "big moment" in the EU debate.
The peer - who was Margaret Thatcher's chancellor for six years - voted to stay in the European Common Market, as the EU was known in 1975, but said: "I shall be voting 'out' in 2017."
He said he "strongly" suspected there would be a "positive economic advantage to the UK in leaving the single market".
Far from hitting business hard, it would instead be a wake-up call for those who had been too content in "the warm embrace of the European single market" when the great export opportunities lay in the developing world, particularly Asia.
"Over the past decade, UK exports to the EU have risen in cash terms by some 40%. Over the same period, exports to the EU from those outside it have risen by 75%," he added.
Withdrawing from the EU would also save the City of London from a "frenzy of regulatory activism", such as the financial transactions tax that Brussels is seeking to impose.
Lord Lawson said his argument had "nothing to do with being anti-European".
"The heart of the matter is that the very nature of the European Union, and of this country's relationship with it, has fundamentally changed after the coming into being of the European monetary union and the creation of the eurozone, of which - quite rightly - we are not a part.
"Not only do our interests increasingly differ from those of the eurozone members but, while never 'at the heart of Europe' (as our political leaders have from time to time foolishly claimed), we are now becoming increasingly marginalised as we are doomed to being consistently outvoted by the eurozone bloc."
'Clear timetable'At the local elections last week, the UK Independence Party - which campaigns for the UK to leave the EU - made substantial gains, while the Conservatives lost control of 10 councils.
"Start Quote
End QuoteAs it happens, those who run our biggest companies would tend to be horrified at the idea of withdrawal from the EU."
The UKIP surge prompted a call from senior Tory MP David Davis to bring forward the planned referendum - while other Conservatives, including former chairman Lord Tebbit, urged Mr Cameron to take steps to give the public more confidence that a referendum would indeed take place if he wins the next general election.
Reacting to Lord Lawson's comments, a Downing Street spokesman said: "The PM has always been clear: we need a Europe that is more open, more competitive, and more flexible; a Europe that wakes up to the modern world of competition. In short, Europe has to reform.
"But our continued membership must have the consent of the British people, which is why the PM has set out a clear timetable on this issue."
The BBC News Channel's chief political correspondent Norman Smith said No 10 was pointing to the UK's success in obtaining a cut in the EU's budget earlier this year as evidence that a new relationship could be secured.
However, he said Lord Lawson's comments would give major impetus to those believing the UK's future best lay outside the EU and were also significant for his critique of Mr Cameron's negotiating strategy.
'Serious divisions'Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said that leaving the European Union would "make us less safe because we cooperate in the European Union to go after criminal gangs that cross borders".
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
He said it could put 3m jobs at risk and made it difficult to deal with cross border threats like climate change and would also see Britain "taken less seriously in Washington, Beijing, Tokyo".
UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said Lord Lawson's intervention "legitimised" his party's longstanding argument that the UK could prosper outside the EU while exposing "serious divisions" in the Conservatives.
Former Labour Europe minister Peter Hain said he totally disagreed with EU withdrawal but believed Lord Lawson was right in suggesting David Cameron's approach could not succeed as "EU members will not agree Treaty changes".
Political commentator and Times' comment editor Tim Montgomerie told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the article would add fuel to the debate on Europe within the Conservative Party that Mr Cameron had hoped could wait until further down the line.
"Lord Lawson will give much more confidence to those people who do want to leave the EU to go public with those views," he added.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Lord Lawson calls for UK to exit EU
Dengan url
http://cangkirtehhangat.blogspot.com/2013/05/lord-lawson-calls-for-uk-to-exit-eu.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Lord Lawson calls for UK to exit EU
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Lord Lawson calls for UK to exit EU
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar