LONDON: Deputy leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson has warned that Britain will face spending cuts and tax rises of around 26 billion U.S. dollars if Britons back leaving the European Union (EU).
The main opposition party, representing the working class and blue-collar workers in Britain, is officially in favor of remaining part of the 28-member bloc.
The “Leave” camp denounced Watson’s claim as fanciful and ridiculous. Justice Secretary Michael Gove, a “Leave” supporter, described the claim as “Project Fear” from Labour which tried to scare people into voting to stay in the EU.
“Many of the people who say that we will suffer economically if we’re outside the EU are the same people who said we had to be inside the euro. They were wrong then, they’re wrong now,” said Gove.
With a national referendum on June 23 now less than two weeks away, latest polls showed the “Leave” and “Remain” camps were running virtually neck-and-neck.
The WhatUKThinks website’s average of the last six opinion polls put the “Remain” camp on 51 percent and the “Leave” campaign on 49 percent.
Leading figures in the Labour Party were given orders Friday to win over members that would vote for the country to quit the European Union (EU).
Andy Burnham, Labour’s home affairs spokesman, urged Labour voters to back staying in the EU, saying there is a real possibility that Britain could vote for isolation.
Former Labour leader Ed Milliband urged Labour voters not to succumb to the temptation to see the EU referendum as a chance to unseat Prime Minister David Cameron. “This is no mid-term protest, this is the choice of a generation. To those who would say they’d like to see David Cameron to lose his job, so do I, but not through a Brexit.”
Responding to Labour’s charm offensive to persuade any dissenting members to back Remain, Labour MP and Brexit supporter John Mann said: “It’s not that Labour’s not getting its message across, it’s that Labour voters are fundamentally disagreeing.”
Another veteran Labour MP Frank Field warned the party would risk losing votes with its Remain policy.
“In trying to scare Labour voters to back Remain, our leadership is on course to lose another 1 million votes to UKIP (UK Independence Party), just as we did in 2015,” said Field.
In other referendum news Friday, it emerged that almost half a million Britons registered to vote during a 48-hour extension to the registration deadline.
Professor John Curtice, polling analyst from Scotland’s Strathclyde University, said Friday that the opinion polls are not shifting decisively.
“In fact, the polling shows that public opinion has remained extraordinary stable in recent months. Minds are not changing that much. The split is basically 50/50. The only question is which side of that Leave/Remain line the verdict will fall on June 23,” he said.
Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s anti-immigration UKIP, said a vote to leave could see Denmark, Austria and Sweden also following Britain and leaving the EU.
