Brexit will turn UK into a second-rate player: Tusk
Brussels, Nov. 14: Britain will lose influence in international affairs and become a ‘second-rate player’ after it leaves the EU, Euro-pean Council president Donald Tusk said.
Backers of Britain’s 2016 vote to exit the EU, the world’s largest trading bloc, say that the country the world’s fifth largest economy will achieve a new global status unshackled from EU rules and closer to the US.
Tusk said only a united Europe could confront an assertive China and play an effective global role.
“I have heard repeatedly from Brexiteers that they wanted to leave the European Union to make the United Kingdom global again, believing that only alone, it can truly be great,” Tusk said.
“But the reality is exactly the opposite. Only as part of a united Europe can the UK play a global role, only together can we confront, without any complexes, the greatest powers of this world. And the world knows it,” said Tusk, who has chaired EU summits for the past five years and been an influential voice in European politics.
“I have heard the same in India, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa that after its departure, the UK will become an outsider.”
Tusk has repeatedly voiced a wish for Britain to change its mind and stay in the EU. The former Polish prime minister will step down from his post on Dec. 1, handing over to former Belgian prime minister Charles Michel.
Britain is set to leave the bloc on Jan. 31, 2020, if PM Boris Johnson wins a majority in next month’s polls and thereby secures parliamentary ratification of his EU withdrawal deal.