Barack Obama has made an emotional plea to the British public to “stick together” with the rest of the European Union, as he arrived in the UK to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday.
With the result of June’s referendum looking too close to call, the US president eschewed careful diplomatic language to make a direct appeal to voters to back the remain campaign. “As citizens of the United Kingdom take stock of their relationship with the EU, you should be proud that the EU has helped spread British values and practices – democracy, the rule of law, open markets – across the continent and to its periphery,” he wrote in an article in the Daily Telegraph.
He evoked the close cooperation between the US and UK during the second world war, citing Franklin D Roosevelt’s toast to King George VI in 1939, when the president said: “I am persuaded that the greatest single contribution our two countries have been enabled to make to civilisation, and to the welfare of peoples throughout the world, is the example we have jointly set by our manner of conducting relations between our two nations.”
But contrary to the claims of some in the leave camp that the UK could strengthen its ties with the US by leaving the EU, Obama insisted: “I will say, with the candour of a friend, that the outcome of your decision is a matter of deep interest to the United States. The tens of thousands of Americans who rest in Europe’s cemeteries are a silent testament to just how intertwined our prosperity and security truly are.”
He added: “The US sees how your powerful voice in Europe ensures that Europe takes a strong stance in the world, and keeps the EU open, outward-looking, and closely linked to its allies on the other side of the Atlantic. So the US and the world need your outsized influence to continue – including within Europe.”
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