US calls on UK to remain in European Union

US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the 52nd Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, southern Germany, on February 13, 2016. (AFP photo)

US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged the UK to stay in the European Union (EU), saying it is in the interest of Washington, London and Brussels that Britain remained an EU member.

“Europe is going to emerge stronger than ever, provided it stays united and builds common responses to these challenges,” Kerry said at a security conference in Munich, Germany on Saturday.

“Now obviously, the United States has a profound interest in your success, as we do in a very strong United Kingdom staying in a strong EU,” he added.

There are growing fears in Washington that the UK’s planned referendum on EU membership might be a dangerous gamble that could have disastrous consequences for the entire continent.

UK Premier David Cameron told an audience of European leaders in Hamburg, Germany on Friday that the continent had to “stand together” against what he described as Russian aggression and the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group.

Cameron linked Britain’s EU membership to the fight against ISIL. “Just as Europe has faced down dangerous and murderous ideologies in the past, so again we must stand together in this, the struggle of our generation, to confront this evil and defeat it.”

The UK will hold a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether the country should remain a member of the union.

Membership of the European Union has been a controversial issue in the UK since the country joined the then European Economic Community in 1973.

Those in favor of a British withdrawal from the EU argue that outside the bloc, London would be better positioned to conduct its own trade negotiations, better able to control immigration and free from what they believe to be excessive EU regulations and bureaucracy.

Those in favor of remaining in the bloc argue that leaving it would risk the UK's prosperity, diminish its influence over world affairs, and result in trade barriers between the UK and the EU.


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