{"id":34857,"date":"2013-05-20T21:18:08","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T20:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/cameron-wants-to-kick-eu-exit-issue-into-long-grass-ukip-leader\/34857\/"},"modified":"2013-05-20T21:18:08","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T20:18:08","slug":"cameron-wants-to-kick-eu-exit-issue-into-long-grass-ukip-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/cameron-wants-to-kick-eu-exit-issue-into-long-grass-ukip-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Cameron wants to kick EU exit issue into long grass\u2019 \u2014 UKIP leader"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Published time: May 20, 2013 20:12 <\/span>
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\n Nigel Farage (AFP Photo \/ Paul Ellis) <\/p>\n

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Despite the British government\u2019s desire to soft-pedal the country\u2019s possible EU exit, the referendum to decide UK\u2019s future in the Union must be held before the 2015 general election, believes the leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n

With a lot of hard feeling swirling around the EU, one thing
\nmany seem agreed on is anger at Brussels. Nine European countries
\nare now in recession and, with no end to austerity in sight, EU
\nmembership appears to be more trouble than its worth for some.<\/p>\n

The leader of the Euroskeptical UKIP party, Nigel Farage, says
\nrecent research show that by participating in the EU, Britain is
\nannually losing more than \u00a3100 billion due to membership fees and
\nthe Union\u2019s regulations. \u00a0<\/p>\n

RT:<\/b> Support for your cause is growing, and as our Berlin
\ncorrespondent reported, the UK’s EU cousins don’t mind Britain
\nleaving. So who wants the UK to stay?<\/i><\/p>\n

Nigel Farage:<\/b> Germany wants the UK to stay \u2014 because Germany
\nthinks that if the UK leaves the whole thing will unravel. And if
\nit unravels, including the Eurozone, than the Germans will have
\nsome very big losses. And also, you know, the Germans are the ones
\nthat have benefited out of the Eurozone. Most of their growth over
\nthe last four, five or six years has been to the cost of other
\nEurozone countries. So the Germans \u2014 very very keen to keep Britain
\nin.<\/p>\n

RT:<\/b> There are repeated warnings that foreign investors
\nare being put off by the uncertainty. Does Britain fully understand
\nthe possible ramifications of the exit from the EU?<\/i><\/p>\n

NF:<\/b> Well, what would\u2019ve been really damaging to the UK is if
\nwe\u2019d been stupid enough to join the Eurozone. Thank goodness, we
\nsaid \u2018no.\u2019 Otherwise we\u2019d in a similar state to many of the
\nMediterranean countries today. That was the first big good decision
\nthat we\u2019ve made. Now I do understand the argument about
\nuncertainty, even though I very much take the view that trade would
\ngo on between Britain and the rest of Europe completely unaffected
\nby us leaving the political union. After all, the European
\ncountries sell far more goods to us than we do to them. But I do
\nunderstand that anything where you\u2019re told there could be a
\nfour-and-a-half, perhaps a five-year debate on the subject could
\nlead to uncertainty. All of which really reinforces my view that
\nwhat [British PM, David] Cameron has done here is to attempt to
\nkick this issue off into the long grass. And really we\u2019ve got a
\nhave a referendum to sort this issue before the next general
\nelection. \u00a0<\/p>\n

RT:<\/b> Instead of keeping one hand on the exit, why aren’t
\nEuro MPs like yourself taking more advantage of trying to change
\nthings from within Brussels?<\/i><\/p>\n

NF:<\/b> Oh, goodness me, if we try to reform this thing from
\nwithin I\u2019d need to live to 300 to have much chance. Listen, the
\ninteresting thing is that in response to the Eurozone crisis really
\nalmost everybody inside the EU \u2014 rather than saying let\u2019s reform
\nthings, let\u2019s change things, let\u2019s accept this model isn\u2019t really
\nworking \u2014 they\u2019ve done the opposite. They\u2019re saying: \u2018Oh, goodness
\nme, we must have more Europe, more integration, we must take yet
\nmore democracy away from member states. Nobody, but nobody, inside
\nthese institutions is talking about reform in the same terms as the
\nUK debate and Mr Cameron are. They are two completely different
\nthings. \u00a0

<\/b>RT:<\/b> Britain’s membership is estimated to be
\nworth between \u00a331 and 92 billion pounds per year in income gains
\naccording to business leaders \u2014 what would that be replaced
\nwith?<\/i>

NF:<\/b> There are some business figures, many of whom have already
\ngot knighthoods or peerages, worth noting that and people, who are
\nheads of giant multinational companies. And they\u2019ve got businesses
\nin Europe, and they\u2019ve also got big businesses in Europe. And I can
\nsee the argument that if you\u2019re multinational the EU way of making
\nlaw is to your benefit because it puts out of business all of your
\nsmall and medium-size competitors. So, I understand that. But the
\nidea that because we\u2019re members of the political union, because
\nwe\u2019ve surrendered our democracy means that other countries in
\nEurope will do business with us is nonsense. We do business all
\nover the world without being in a political union with anybody
\nelse. And far from it being a big benefit to the British economy
\nthere are many other people \u2014 right through from the Institute of
\nDirectors, through some recent analysis from professor Tim Compton,
\none of the government\u2019s former wise men, saying actually this is
\ncosting us, some say, more than \u00a3100 billion per year to be in,
\nwith membership fees and the regulation, which the British
\ngovernment would never ever choose.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on : RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published time: May 20, 2013 20:12 Nigel Farage (AFP Photo \/ Paul Ellis) Embed Code Despite the British government\u2019s desire to soft-pedal the country\u2019s possible EU exit, the referendum to decide UK\u2019s future in the Union must be held before the 2015 general election, believes the leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage. With […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}