Outcry as Japanese PM tells Britain: You should stay in EU
JAPANESE Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has faced a storm of criticism after he tried to scare British voters into supporting the Remain campaign in the EU referendum.
The intervention led to questions over whether Mr Abe would be willing to go into political and economic union with undemocratic China if he thought Britain should remain under the control of Brussels.
The anger came as Downing Street was forced to deny it had written Mr Abe’s lines, which he clearly read from a sheet at a press conference.
His statement was almost wordfor- word the same as Barack Obama’s last month, which Brexit campaigners claimed had come from No 10, with the US President using the word “queue” instead of the usual American- English “line”.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage, who last month told Mr Obama to “butt out”, asked: “If the Japanese Prime Minister thinks the EU is such a good idea, why doesn’t he enter his country into full economic and political union with China?
“The reality is that in the modern world, independent countries that control their borders and make their own global trade deals are the ones thriving and outside of the EU that is exactly what the UK will be free and able to do.”
Head of Vote Leave, Matthew Elliott, said: “Japan wouldn’t accept the huge loss of control Britain has suffered because of our European Union membership, so much of the public will be sceptical of the Japanese Prime Minister’s ‘ do as I say, not as we do’ attitude.
“Japanese bosses argued that we would be diminished if we didn’t join the euro, so similar warnings about the referendum further lack credibility. The EU has a terrible record negotiating trade deals, yet we’ve handed power over our trade to Brussels and that’s on top of the £ 350million we pay the Commission every week. On June 23 it’s safer to take back control.”
At a joint press conference at No 10 with David Cameron, Mr Abe said Brexit would make the UK “less attractive” to Japanese investors and stressed that Japanese firms viewed the UK as a “gateway” to Europe.
The premier also stressed that Tokyo is more interested in doing a trade deal with the EU as a block, rather than “individual states” in Europe.
Co- founder of Grassroots Out, Peter Bone, said: “It is disappointing that the Prime Minister has learnt nothing from the disastrous Barack Obama intervention on the European Union.
“It is not for foreign leaders to lecture UK citizens on how they should vote on June 23.”
The MP added: “Pleading with the Japanese Prime Minister to tell UK voters how wonderful an EU Super State is demonstrates the desperation of the Remain campaign. Until Japan forms a political union with North Korea, China and Mongolia, they are ill- placed to promote the wonders of being in the EU.”
JAPANESE prime minister Shinzo Abe has weighed in on the EU referendum debate saying that he would prefer Britain to remain shackled to Brussels. David Cameron cannot resist deploying his friends from overseas to back the campaign to keep us in.
Foreign leaders have no place meddling in our affairs, especially when they would never countenance signing up their own countries to the same rules we endure as an EU member.
But after Barack Obama’s laughable warnings about Britain’s future the campaign to leave rose in the polls. If the Brussels fanatics think we are likely to take any more notice of Japan’s leader they are deluded. They would be better off trying to find a positive argument for membership, something none of them have yet achieved.