Growing anxiety over EU vote palpable

As the June 23 referendum vote approaches, the polls show the Leave campaign is edging the Remain camp amid international angst that UK’s exit from the EU would have a negative impact on the bloc and global economy as well. Polls ahead of the British vote saw stocks and the pound dropping after four polls put the Leave campaign ahead of Remain. Sterling approached a two-month low against the dollar and investors rushed to havens.
The tide seems to be changing against the Remain campaign, which has enjoyed the rating for months focusing on the economic status of the UK within the EU. Prime Minister David Cameron’s strategy to keep the UK in the 28-nation EU is under enormous pressure. The Leave campaign’s focus on reducing immigration appears to resonate more with voters than the government’s multiple warnings of economic recession outside the bloc.
Anxiety of Europe’s top economy is palpable. But EU is also getting the jitters. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier issued a stark warning of the risks to the rest of the bloc. German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed Britain to stay in the EU, and warned that it would miss out on the bloc’s past and future gains if it left. EU President Donald Tusk said, “The cost will be very high also for us (EU).”
Facing a sharp criticism in his own party, Cameron has turned to the opposition Labour Party to help shore up the Remain vote. On Monday, his predecessor as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made an impassioned plea to Labour voters not to turn their backs on the EU. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who is campaigning for Britain to remain in the 28-member bloc, made a last ditch attempt to sway voters by referring to sensitive issues that touch the lives of voters. He said that schools, hospitals and the army would all have their funding slashed if Britons vote to leave. Osborne said leaving the EU would blast a £30-billion (US$42.4-billion) hole in national finances.
But Osborne’s remarks were seen by the Leave campaign as scaremongering and inaccurate. Michael Howard and Iain Duncan Smith, both former leaders of Cameron’s Conservative Party, joined former Chancellors of the Exchequer Norman Lamont and Nigel Lawson in accusing the Bank of England and Treasury of “peddling phony forecasts and scare stories” during the campaign.
“There has been startling dishonesty in the economic debate, with a woeful failure on the part of the Bank of England, the Treasury, and other official sources to present a fair and balanced analysis,” the four men wrote in an article for Thursday’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.
As the race intensifies, two top British newspapers declared their tilt. The Financial Times, which officially endorsed remaining in the bloc on Thursday, said a vote for Britain to quit the EU in next week’s referendum “would seriously damage the UK economy”. “Since Britain joined the EU in 1973, real gross domestic product per head has grown faster than in France, Germany and Italy,” it said.
But The Sun said it wanted Britons to “reassert our sovereignty” against a “relentlessly expanding German-dominated federal state”. The tabloid, with around 4.5 million readers, is using its front page to boost the Leave campaign. With little confidence on the polls due to their utter failure to predict the election results in Britain in 2015, there is a sense the vote to stay or exit from the EU is still unclear.