All efforts on to protect UK; Farage flays European Union

LONDON: Britain’s chancellor George Osborne on Monday said the government would do whatever was necessary to protect its economy from the fallout of the Greek crisis, but wanted Greece and creditors to still try and find a deal at the ‘eleventh hour’.

Making a statement to parliament, Osborne said the deteriorating situation in Greece signalled more risks for the UK, but added that the thousands of British pensioners living in Greece would continue to receive pensions as normal.

Osborne’s statement came after a series of meetings during the day, including one chaired by Prime Minister David Cameron and governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, and Osborne.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, used the Greek referendum vote to declare that EU had become obsolete.

Farage, whose party enlisted much support over the last two years with its anti-EU agenda, wrote in The Daily Telegraph: “There is a bigger picture to consider, however. A huge generational dynamic exists, running through all of this”.

“Whilst some of the older generation may still buy into the notion of the EU having brought peace to Europe, the younger generations are just not sold. And why should they be? The European Union today is causing massive resentment between European nations,” Farage wrote.

A spokeswoman for Cameron said that Greece and the eurozone should “sit down and talk through the implications” of the result. Osborne had said on Sunday that Britain “cannot be immune from these developments”.