BIRMINGHAM: Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday he would not be heartbroken if Britain left the European Union because he felt little attachment to a relationship he said was not serving British interests.
Cameron, who has promised to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership if re-elected before offering voters an in-out referendum by 2017, is under pressure from the anti-EU UK Independence Party (Ukip) and some of his own lawmakers to toughen his rhetoric on Europe.
“I feel about a thousand times more strongly about our United Kingdom than I do about the European Union,” Cameron told BBC radio when asked about a statement he would have been heartbroken to see Scotland leave the United Kingdom.
Cameron said his preference was for Britain to stay in a reformed EU after a new settlement with Brussels, but said that the relationship was not working.
When asked whether it would break his heart to see a British EU exit, he said: “The United Kingdom was an issue of heartbreak. This is a matter of important pragmatism: What is best for our United Kingdom? How do we get the best deal for Britain? That is what I feel strongly about.”
The British Conservative party’s schism over Europe has marred Cameron’s last major party conference before the 2015 election, overshadowing his attempt to pitch a growing economy and lower welfare spending to voters.
The defection of a second Conservative lawmaker to UKIP on the eve of the conference ratcheted up the pressure on Cameron to take a tougher line on Europe, immigration and welfare less than eight months before a national election in May.
Under pressure from his own party to deepen his Eurosceptic accent, Cameron is also anxious not to offend German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe’s most powerful leader, who could scupper any British attempt at an EU renegotiation.
He has so far garnered only limited backing for his plans among other EU states and while Merkel does favour EU treaty change, she sees it as much more limited in scope than Cameron and as a way of deepening euro zone integration. Ukip, led by Nigel Farage, could win its first seat in the British parliament on October 9 — the day Cameron turns 48 — after lawmaker Douglas Carswell switched to Ukip.
Senior Conservatives admit Carswell could win the seat for Ukip, but Cameron has warned voters that supporting the anti-EU party could split the Conservative vote in what is expected to be a very close 2015 election, paving the way for the opposition Labour party to gain power. “There is a renegotiation to be done that gets you guarantees on the single market, an end to ever closer union, better guarantees on immigration, a solution to many of the problems Britain finds in the EU. I believe that can be done,” Cameron said.
Reuters
BIRMINGHAM: Britain yesterday proposed measures to ban extremist groups and curb the activities of radical preachers even if they haven’t committed a crime, in a move one leading Islamist called an attempt to distract from British foreign policy.
“Not all extremism leads to violence and not all extremists are violent, but the damage caused by extremism to our society is reason enough to act,” Home Secretary Theresa May told the annual Conservative party conference in Birmingham.
“We must face down extremism in all its forms. We must stand up for our values,” she said, adding: “I want to see new civil powers to target extremists who stay just within the law.”
The clampdown, which would be enacted if Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives are re-elected in May, follows growing concern about radicalised youths heading to fight with Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq.
British police arrested the high-profile Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary last week along with others suspected of links to a banned extremist group and militancy.
Choudary, who was released on bail, said the arrest was “politically motivated” and claimed it was linked to preparations for last week’s vote in the British parliament on joining air strikes against the Islamic State jihadists in Iraq.
“They are trying to divert attention away from their own foreign policy,” he said.
“If they believe in freedom of expression and freedom of belief and so on, then why are they curtailing them?”
Under the proposed “Extremism Disruption Orders”, British courts would have the power to restrict the activities of individuals to prevent the risk of violence and public disorder, officials said.
Individuals could be banned from speaking at public events, taking part in protests or speaking through the media—a proposal that revives memories of a controversial BBC ban on Irish republican leader Gerry Adams from Sinn Fein during the unrest in Northern Ireland.
They could also be ordered to submit any material to the police for vetting before it is put onto the Internet.
Separate “banning orders” would extend existing laws to allow groups to be outlawed even if they did not pose a violent threat, including on the grounds of being a “threat” to democracy.
AFP
