LONDON (Reuters) – Britain would become a sort of “greater Switzerland” if it left the European Union, Prime Minister David Cameron warned on Thursday, promising instead to claw back powers from Brussels to protect Britain from the side effects of euro zone reform.
Talk of leaving the EU was once far fetched, but the euro zone debt crisis and the prospect of the currency bloc forging a closer political union have convinced some senior UK politicians that Britain should demand a new relationship with Brussels.
Cameron said it was a “perfectly honorable position” to call for an immediate referendum on Britain’s EU membership – something polls show a majority of British people would vote to reject – but that he would never campaign for an “out” vote because leaving the EU would not serve British interests.
“I think it would be bad for Britain,” Cameron told The Daily Telegraph in an interview. “When I look at what is in our national interest, we are not some country that looks in on ourselves or retreats from the world.”
“It comes back to this, who are going to be the winning nations for the 21st century? If your vision of Britain was that we should just withdraw and become a sort of greater Switzerland, I think that would be a complete denial of our national interests.”
Some senior Conservatives want an in-or-out referendum on Britain’s EU membership, but in recent months Cameron has tried to cool demands for an immediate vote by holding out the prospect of a referendum some time in the future and by promising a new relationship with the EU.
Skeptics say EU regulations shackle Britain’s $2.5 trillion economy and that leaving the 27-nation bloc would allow London to restore its sovereignty while saving billions of dollars in membership dues.
However, supporters of membership argue Britain would lose influence if it left the EU, its biggest trading partner, and that its economy would still be influenced by rules made in Brussels anyway.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge- Editing by Andrew Osborn)
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