Warning to UK over EU exit
LONDON: France warned Britain yesterday it would end border controls and let thousands of refugees move on to Britain if voters backed leaving the EU.
It also said it would open its arms to British-based banks wanting to flee a non-EU Britain and stay in the bloc.
French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron echoed comments by Prime Minister David Cameron that a migrant camp known as the “Jungle” in the northern French coastal town of Calais could move to southern England in the event of a British EU exit.
Speaking ahead of an Anglo-French security summit in Amiens, Macron said a British exit would scupper a border deal that halts refugees in France, but that Paris would be happy to accept bankers fleeing London.
“The day this relationship unravels, refugees will no longer be in Calais,” Macron told the Financial Times, adding that rules allowing British-based banks to operate across the EU would be lost.
“Collective energy would be spent on unwinding existing links, not recreating new ones,” he said, a comment aimed at the view of British Eurosceptics that a new deal could be made.
Macron’s comments, which support Cameron’s argument that an EU exit after the June 23 referendum could undermine security, led television news reports in Britain, where opinion polls indicate immigration is the biggest concern for voters.
Opponents of membership said the comment was part of a campaign to scare British voters into supporting membership.
A British exit from the EU would rock the EU – already shaken by differences over migration and by fragility within the euro zone – by ripping away its second-largest economy, one of its top two military powers and by far its richest financial centre.
In a move that underscored big company concern over the impact of a possible British exit, Germany’s BMW wrote to British employees who make its luxury Rolls-Royce car about the risks of a Brexit, as leaving is known.
“As a wholly owned BMW Group company, it is important for all Rolls-Royce Motor Cars employees to understand the view of our parent company,” BMW said in the letter.
“We believe it’s much better to be at the table when regulations are set and have a hand in their creation, rather than simply having to accept them.”
The prospect of leaving the EU also drove growth in Britain’s dominant services sector to a near three-year low last month, according to an economic survey.
“Let’s believe in ourselves again, rather than clutching the skirts of Brussels,” London mayor Boris Johnson wrote in The Sun, opposing the so-called scare tactics British citizens are dealt.