In the shadow of murder, UK to vote on EU membership

Investors, CEOs and bankers bracing for the most ‘volatile event’

BRITONS will shape the future of the United Kingdom and Europe on Thursday when they decide whether to stay in the European Union following a campaign that has shown the potency of anti-establishment feeling in the West.

The vote comes a week after the murder of a lawmaker in the street left many voters wondering whether the campaign rhetoric on both sides — warnings of economic disaster versus uncontrolled immigration hadgonetoofarinacountryconsidered a paragon of stability.

Whatever the outcome, the referendum could force the EU to rethink how it governs 500 million citizens and — along with the rise of Donald Trump in the United States — have farreachingimplicationsforthefuture configuration of the West.

Allies such as US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have implored Britain to stay

London: British PM David Cameron has invoked increasing trade with India as part of his plea to the public to vote to remain in the EU in Thursday’s crucial referendum, saying the UK could do more with the country but cutting off from the main market would be “economic madness”. Cameron was taking questions from the audience on Sunday night as part of a special BBC ‘Question Time’ show when he said, “The rise of countries like India and China ... (means we have) big economies that we need to trade with more. But European trade and European economies have grown a great amount since we joined in 1972”. He said Britain could “do more with India” but not at the expense of cutting itself off from the EU. Reuters in the bloc, which they say has given Europe decades of prosperity after centuries of bloodshed.

Investors, chief executives and central bankers are bracing forwhatcouldbeoneof themost volatileeventsforfinancialmarkets since, at least, the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who promised the referendum in 2013 under pressure from eurosceptic lawmakers in his own party, has mixed rhetoric about his island nation’s history with dire warnings about the costs and dangers of a Brexit.

“This referendum has now become a watershed moment for our country,” Cameron said when campaigning resumed after a two-and-a-half-day suspension called as a sign of respect for lawmaker Jo Cox, who was shot and stabbed last week.

“There is no turning back if we leave,” he added, warning this would be “an abject and self-imposed humiliation” that would leave “a permanently poorer country in every sense”.

The murder of Cox, a 41year-old mother of two young children who was an ardent supporter of EU membership, shocked the country and abruptly changed the tone of the caustic campaigning that has polarised the country.

Reuters