Fight Over Britain's Relationship with EU
BECKY ANDERSON, HOST: Right, you have been listening to the British prime minister's address to the House of Commons making the case for why the UK should stay in the European Union. British voters will be polled on whether they want in or out of the European Union on June 23rd. Cameron made a point of saying he has no other agenda than what is right for the UK. And said Britain should stay in the EU so that it can influence it from the inside. And in his payoff he accused Boris Johnson, the current mayor of London who has officially endorsed the out campaign over weekend, of leadership maneuvering. A stinger, then, from the current prime minister against one of his former friends and colleagues. CNN's Max Foster following developments and joining us now from London. Max, what did you make of the speech by the British prime minister and indeed the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn?</s>MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting. He spent a lot of time talking about Boris Johnson without actually mentioning his name, because Boris Johnson is completely changed the dynamic of this whole campaign, really. So Jeremy Corbyn is actually on the same side as David Cameron on this one, which is one of those unusual situations you end up in sometimes. But hey both want to stay within the European Union. What Boris Johnson is saying is that he doesn't feel that the deal that David Cameron brokered in Brussels was enough. It was watered down. What Boris Johnson has suggested is a second set of negotiations and a second referendum so what David Cameron kept on doing was referring back to that and making jokes of it saying you don't begin divorce proceedings through renewing your marriage vows and also says I won't dwell on the irony of a leave vote to remain. And he made it very clear that this referendum is the final say in all of this process. So there won't be a second round to try to undermine Boris Johnson's argument.</s>ANDERSON: I think we got Sebastian Payne standing by. Have we? Yes, we do. Sebastian Payne of the FT standing by. So, Max, back to you shortly. Sebastian, what do you you make of what we have just heard in the house of commons?</s>SEBASTIAN PAYNE, FIANCIAL TIMES: We heard a very powerful statement from the prime minister. We have seen David Cameron at his best over the last few days. And -- but what we have also seen there was that attack on Boris Johnson you just mentioned. There's a lot of blood that's been let between the prime minister and the mayor of London. And I think it's going to get really personal now. The last time the prime minister attacked Boris Johnson, whose -- went to school at with university with the prime minister, it didn't end very well. And it's clearly a lot of upsetting Downing Street that the mayor is backing out now. So, I think it was a very powerful statement, the prime minister is really going to push for his deal. The other notable thing was Jeremy Corbyn's statement, which was really quite bad. There was nothing there. He rattled through it. And I'm not even sure he really believed what he was saying.</s>ANDERSON: Boris Johnson wrote an open letter in The Daily Telegraph explaining why he wants the UK to leave the EU. And I want to talk to you about what this means not just for Britain and the EU but its global ramifications. Let's just have a look at what Boris Johnson said. In it, he wrote, "this is the only opportunity we will ever have to show that we care about self-rule. A vote to remain will be taken in Brussels as a green light for the erosion of democracy." If the UK does vote to take back control from Brussels, Sebastian, how significant would that be and could other countries follow suit? Are we looking at the decimation of this EU project as it were when set up with the single European act back in 1992?</s>PAYNE: I think that the EU has a lot of problems at the moment, whether it's the Greek crisis, whether it's the migration crisis, whether it is the global economy currently faltering. And I think if Britain did vote to leave and a break would then happen, as David Cameron has just suggested, then it would be a really big problem for the European project. There's already a problem that other countries are going to be asking for their own deals. You know, Britain has now not going to bespoke membership as David Cameron has just said. So, there is a question about what is Poland going to ask for, what's France going to ask for, what's Germany going to ask for? So, there are a lot of questions here. And I think this is why David Cameron is keen to say Britain has got a good deal, because he wanted to be seen that we are special here, whereas in fact there is a great demand across Europe to keep Britain in the EU. And there's a great demand in the Tory Party for it to leave.</s>ANDERSON: OK. We will hear a lot of talk from David Cameron and his backers about this special status that he was able to negotiate, he says, with Brussels late last week. What does he mean by that? Going forward if Britain say stays in the European Union with special status, what does that mean?</s>PAYNE: Well, this is a very good question and something that is going to be tested out. But certainly we are opting out of this ever closer union which was a key clause of the Lisbon treaty a few years ago that simply means Europeans want to move to a sort of closer political, economic and fiscal system. Where this is not something I think many Britons want, that Britons they feel they have a very different relationship with Europe than I think in France and Germany. The EU is thought as prosperity and freedom and cooperation. In Britain, it's seen as coming Johnny Foreigners coming over here and imposing laws on us. I think that's where the nerve came from this referendum came from are the people who believed that often voted for the UK Independence Party led by the right wing and Nigel Farage. So I think what David Cameron is trying to say is that I have got enough back that Britain isn't going to be a part of this ever closer union. We will have opt out. We will be able to make more of our own decisions and most importantly Britain is going to be sovereign once again. He's also bringing up this idea of what is sovereignty. Now, the other thing that was alluded to in that speech we've just heard is this sovereignty bill. And we don't really know what this is yet. And the prime minister said it was going to in the next few days. We still don't have any sign of it. So I think that one has been a little bit that will be a little delayed. But when that comes, there's going to be some grand statement that essentially says, Brussels, you can't keep enforcing new laws and new ideas on us, which again gives us an idea that the EU isn't ruling over Britain.</s>ANDRESON: Got it. All right, let's follow the money, then, because ofttimes that's what this is all about. The numbers, then, behind the UK's place in Europe are as follows, Sebastian. I want you to react to these. EU countries invested more than$700 billion in the United Kingdom in 2014, that's almost half of the total investment according to official figures. Trade supports 3.4 million jobs, according to the LSE, that's the London School of Economic's European Iinstitute. 45 percent of the UK's exports go to other EU states while 53 percent of the UK imports come from within the European Union. Look, if the UK were to pull out, these figures wouldn't fall apart, but they would certainly be very different and they look pretty conclusive, it has to be said. Can the UK be as economically competitive outside of the European Union?</s>PAYNE: Well, I think this is the big question that's going to be tested over the next few weeks in the referendum. As we have just heard from the prime minister, his argument is about security and jobs, that the Brit's economy is doing okay. It could be doing worse. It could be doing better. But the recovery is a little bit shaky. And if we had a Brexit, if we voted to leave and all that would be thrown up in the air. And the FT, the paper I work for, has done a lot of analysis of this and what the case would be. And I think for Britain's economy to prosper if we left the EU, we'd have to have a strong pound, we've have to remove a lot of red tape regulation and it would also require a lot of free trade deals with other parts of the EU. And that's what you have heard the prime minister alluding to there. He's going to try and convince voters that these free trade deals will take years and it will not be simple. And in that time, we will lose out over business. And all those numbers you have just alluded will simply fly in the face of those Brexiteers who say that we can leave and we can make deals with whoever we want and we can be like Norway. So there's a lot of debate over this. On the other hand, there's the argument that the EU is actually limiting British business, that all the red tape and the rules of being in the EU at the moment are holding back British business and we can have a great repeal and we can simply go it alone and do things our own way. But as you said, the numbers very much do suggest that leaving the EU would cause at least in the short-term some bumps in the British economy.</s>ANDERSON: Let's bring back Max, who is outside Number 10. Thank you, Sebastian. Then, the June 23 referendum, Max, will have wide reaching implications were the British voters to vote out of Europe. It would have far reaching global repercussions. How and why?</s>FOSTER: Well, I think this is one of the debates that they are struggling with on the Boris Johnson side, if I can call it that now, the campaign to leave the European Union, because it's very hard to campaign on a political message on taking someone into the unknown. Actually, David Cameron is on easier ground here saying that actually what we've got now in a new renegotiated form within Europe is the best way to represent Britain's interests on the global stage. So to have a role, leading role, in the driving seat of the European Union, but only allowing the European Union to get involved in British issues when they are relevant to Britain and having Britain's best interests at heart. So, this is really how he couched it today in this debate in parliament. he started off saying I've renegotiated the deal and this is the best deal on which to vote, yes, for Britain to stay within the European Union.</s>ANDERSON: Max Foster is outside Number 10 for you. Sebastian Payne is at the bureau in London. To both of you, thank you very much indeed for joining us. We're going to take a very short break. Back after this.