Obama applauded on Friday Britain’s EU membership, which he said had helped make the world freer, richer and better able to tackle everything from migration to terrorism.
“The European Union doesn’t moderate British influence – it magnifies it,” Obama wrote in The Daily Telegraph, a Euroskeptic British newspaper, as reported by Reuters on Saturday.
“As your friend, I tell you that the EU makes Britain even greater,” the headline of Obama’s article read.
His remarks, which led television news broadcasts in Britain, undercut one of the most passionate arguments of the opponents of EU membership: that Britain could prosper on an equal basis with global powers such as the United States.
A spokeswoman for Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed Obama’s intervention, but the president’s comments drew scorn from opponents of Britain’s EU membership.
New York-born London Mayor Boris Johnson, a leader of the “Out” campaign who hints he wants Cameron’s job, derided Obama’s arguments in a newspaper column that referred to “the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire.”
John McDonnell, the opposition Labour Party’s finance policy chief, called Johnson’s remarks “dog-whistle racism.”
The US government, and many US banks and companies, fear a Brexit would cause market turmoil, diminish the clout of Washington’s strongest European ally, hurt London’s global financial hub status, cripple the EU and weaken Western security.
Opinion polls show that British voters lean toward the “In” camp. Many are undecided.
Younger voters are more likely to support remaining in the EU, but “In” campaigners are worried that older voters may be more likely to turn out to vote.