Tag Archives: Britain

‘Explosive shock’ as Britain votes to leave EU, Cameron quits

Celebrating Britain leaving the EU

By Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain voted to leave the European Union, forcing the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron and dealing the biggest blow to the European project of greater unity since World War Two.

Global financial markets plunged on Friday as results from a referendum showed a 52-48 percent victory for the campaign to leave a bloc Britain joined more than 40 years ago.

The pound fell as much as 10 percent against the dollar to touch levels last seen in 1985, on fears the decision could hit investment in the world’s fifth-largest economy, threaten London’s role as a global financial capital and usher in months of political uncertainty.

World stocks headed for one of the biggest slumps on record, and billions of dollars were wiped off the value of European companies. Britain’s big banks took a $130 billion battering, with Lloyds <LLOY.L> and Barclays <BARC.L> falling as much as 30 percent at the opening of trade.

The United Kingdom itself could now break apart, with the leader of Scotland – where nearly two-thirds of voters wanted to stay in the EU – saying a new referendum on independence from the rest of Britain was “highly likely”.

An emotional Cameron, who led the “Remain” campaign to defeat, losing the gamble he took when he called the referendum three years ago, said he would leave office by October.

“The British people have made the very clear decision to take a different path and as such I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction,” he said in a televised address outside his residence.

“I do not think it would be right for me to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination,” he added, choking back tears before walking back through 10 Downing Street’s black door with his arm around his wife Samantha.

Quitting the EU could cost Britain access to the EU’s trade barrier-free single market and means it must seek new trade accords with countries around the world.

The EU for its part will be economically and politically damaged, facing the departure of a member with its biggest financial center, a U.N. Security Council veto, a powerful army and nuclear weapons. In one go, the bloc will lose around a sixth of its economic output.

“It’s an explosive shock. At stake is the break up pure and simple of the union,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. “Now is the time to invent another Europe.”

The result emboldened eurosceptics in other member states, with French National Front leader Marine Le Pen and Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders demanding their countries also hold referendums. Le Pen changed her Twitter profile picture to a Union Jack and declared “Victory for freedom!”

The vote will initiate at least two years of divorce proceedings with the EU, the first exit by any member state. Cameron – who has been premier for six years and called the referendum in a bid to head off pressure from domestic eurosceptics – said it would be up to his successor to formally start the exit process.

His Conservative Party rival Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who became the most recognizable face of the “Leave” camp, is now widely tipped to seek his job.

Johnson left his home to jeers from a crowd in the mainly pro-EU capital. He spoke to reporters at Leave campaign headquarters, taking no questions on his personal ambitions.

“We can find our voice in the world again, a voice that is commensurate with the fifth-biggest economy on Earth,” he said.

‘INDEPENDENCE DAY’

There was euphoria among Britain’s eurosceptic forces, claiming a victory over the political establishment, big business and foreign leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama who had urged Britain to stay in.

“Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day,” said Nigel Farage, leader of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party, describing the EU as “doomed” and “dying”.

On the continent, politicians reacted with dismay.

“It looks like a sad day for Europe and Britain,” said German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. His boss Angela Merkel invited the French and Italian leaders to Berlin to discuss future steps.

The shock hits a European bloc already reeling from a euro zone debt crisis, unprecedented mass migration and confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. Anti-immigrant and anti-EU political parties have been surging across the continent, loosening the grip of the center-left and center-right establishment that has governed Europe for generations.

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, whose own rise has been fueled by similar disenchantment with the political establishment, called the vote a “great thing”. Britons “took back control of their country”, he said in Scotland where he was opening a golf resort. He criticized Obama for telling Britons how to vote, and drew a comparison with his own campaign.

“I see a big parallel,” he said. “People want to take their country back.”

American Vice President Joe Biden said the United States would have preferred Britain to remain in the EU, but respected the decision.

Britain has always been ambivalent about its relations with the rest of post-war Europe. A firm supporter of free trade, tearing down internal economic barriers and expanding the EU to take in ex-communist eastern states, it opted out of joining the euro single currency or the Schengen border-free zone.

Cameron’s ruling Conservatives in particular have harbored a vocal anti-EU wing for generations, and it was partly to silence such figures that he called the referendum in 2013.

When he called the referendum, he thought it would be a sure thing. But the 11th hour decision of Johnson – a schoolmate from the same elite private boarding school – to come down on the side of Leave gave the exit campaign a credible voice.

Even until the last minute, bookmakers and financial markets had overwhelmingly predicted a Remain vote.

World leaders including Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, NATO and Commonwealth governments had all urged a “Remain” vote, saying Britain would be stronger and more influential in the EU than outside.

The four-month campaign was among the divisive ever waged in Britain, with accusations of lying and scare-mongering on both sides and rows over immigration which critics said at times unleashed overt racism.

It revealed deep splits in British society, with the pro-Brexit side drawing support from millions of voters who felt left behind by globalization and blamed EU immigration for low wages and stretched public services.

At the darkest hour, a pro-EU member of parliament was stabbed and shot to death in the street. The suspect later told a court his name was “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain”.

Older voters backed Brexit; the young mainly wanted to stay in. London and Scotland supported the EU, but wide swathes of middle England, which have not shared in the capital’s prosperity, voted to leave.

THREAT OF UK BREAK-UP

The United Kingdom itself now faces a threat to its survival. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it was “democratically unacceptable” for Scotland to be dragged out of the EU against its will.

“It is a statement of the obvious that the option of a second referendum must be on the table and it is on the table,” she told reporters, two years after Scots voted to stay in the United Kingdom. “I think an independence referendum is now highly likely.”

The global financial turmoil was the worst shock since the 2008 economic crisis, and comes at a time when interest rates around the world are already at or near zero, leaving policymakers without the usual tools to respond.

The body blow to global confidence could prevent the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates as planned this year, and might even provoke a new round of emergency policy easing from all major central banks, despite their limited options.

The Bank of England pledged a huge financial backstop to calm plunging markets. Governor Mark Carney said it was offering to provide more than 250 billion pounds ($347 billion) plus “substantial” foreign currency liquidity and it was ready to take additional measures if needed.

Other central banks around the globe also intervened in markets. The European Central Bank said it was ready to provide euro and foreign currency liquidity if necessary.

Left unclear is the relationship Britain can negotiate with the EU once it leaves.

To retain access to the single market, vital for its giant financial services sector, London may have to adopt all EU regulation without having a say in its shaping, contribute to Brussels coffers, and continue to allow free movement as Norway and Switzerland do – all things the Leave campaign vowed to end.

EU officials have said UK-based banks and financial firms would lose automatic access to sell services across Europe if Britain ceased to apply the EU principles of free movement of goods, capital, services and people.

Huge questions also face the millions of British expatriates who live freely elsewhere in the bloc and enjoy equal access to health and other benefits, as well as millions of EU citizens who live and work in Britain.

(Additional reporting by William James, Kylie MacLellan, Sarah Young, Alistair Smout, Costas Pitas, Andy Bruce and David Milliken; Writing by Mark John and Pravin Char; Editing by Peter Graff)

London traders brace for biggest night since Black Wednesday

The Canary Wharf financial district is seen at dusk in east London, Britain

By William James, Freya Berry and Patrick Graham

LONDON (Reuters) – The world’s biggest banks including Citi and Goldman Sachs will draft in senior traders to work through the night following Britain’s referendum on EU membership, set to be among the most volatile 24 hours for markets in a quarter of a century.

A vote to leave the European Union on June 23 would spook investors by undermining post-World War Two attempts at European integration and placing a question mark over the future of the United Kingdom and its $2.9 trillion economy.

Citi, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds are among those banks planning to have senior staff and traders working or on call in London as results start to dribble in after polls close at 2100 GMT, according to the sources.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co, told employees on a visit to Britain this month that if the vote was to leave the EU, the bank would have to have “teams of people thrown on what that means”.

“We won’t know what it means: there is a wide range of outcomes,” Dimon, a supporter of Britain’s membership who has warned of job cuts at JPMorgan in Britain if there is an Out vote, said in the broadcast speech.

A vote to leave could unleash turmoil on foreign exchange, equity and bond markets, spoiling bets across asset classes and potentially testing the infrastructure of Western markets such as computer systems, stock exchanges and clearing houses.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has cautioned that a Brexit vote could shake financial markets and potentially push back the timing of the next rise in U.S. interest rates.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has said sterling could depreciate, “perhaps sharply” and some major banks have forecast an unprecedented fall to parity with the euro and as low as $1.20 in the days following any vote to leave the bloc.

The Bank of England will be staffed overnight, with senior policymakers on call if markets go into meltdown. The finance ministry would not comment on its staffing plans.

The official Vote Leave campaign argues there is no evidence that leaving the EU would weaken sterling long term, while Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party has said that even if the currency did fall, it would simply boost British exports.

BREXIT NIGHT?

Sterling – the world’s fourth most traded currency – has moved sharply in recent weeks, often on the back of opinion polls.

Depending on the results from across the United Kingdom, the night of June 23 and early morning of June 24 could rank as one of the most volatile nights in the history of the London market.

“We’ve all seen U.S. elections, UK general elections, we’ve had the Scottish referendum, the collapse of Lehman and QE (Quantitative Easing) but this is by far and away the biggest risk event that has presented itself to the UK,” said Chris Huddleston, head of money markets at specialist bank Investec.

London accounts for 41 percent of global turnover in the $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, more than double the turnover in the United States and far more than the 3 percent of its closest EU competitors, France and Switzerland.

“All the traders are going to be in … They don’t like missing big moments, if there’s going to be one, they want to be at their desk,” said a senior source at a major bank based in the Canary Wharf financial district of London.

Some banks are planning the night down to the smallest detail to keep their traders on top form – laying on all night catering and booking nearby hotels to offer temporary respite.

“It is the biggest planned risk event that anyone can remember, so everyone is going to be involved. The question is just when you try and get some sleep,” said one senior foreign exchange trader.

No exit polls are planned by British broadcasters so the first numbers from the counts will be turnout results from 382 different areas followed by totals for ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’ in each area. [L8N1920W5]

STERLING

Polls have given contradictory pictures of British public opinion, keeping markets guessing on the final outcome.

That has left sterling, currently priced at $1.41, far away from either of its likely resting places after the final result is known – seen by banks as around $1.50 in the event of a remain vote, or $1.30 or lower if Britain votes to leave.

That almost-certain rapid repricing could set the scene for one of the rockiest sessions since traders wrestled down the value of sterling on Black Wednesday, September 16, 1992, when Britain crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

“If it’s Brexit, then we’re looking at something that’s at least on the scale of Black Wednesday,” said Nick Parsons, global co-head of FX strategy at National Australia Bank and a veteran of the 1992 sterling crisis.

Prices for derivatives used to mitigate the risk of sharp swings in sterling point to a period of intense volatility.

Officials and bank managers planning for the event draw comparisons with the 40 percent surge in the Swiss franc in January 2015, which bankrupted dozens of small investment funds and cost banks including Citi hundreds of millions of dollars.

Traders and analysts told Reuters they would expect a Brexit vote to cause sterling to ‘gap’, or plummet lower – as orders to sell the currency met an absence of willing buyers, leaving a blank spot on the price charts snaking across traders’ screens.

Gaps can inflict huge losses on banks and traders, forcing them to bail out of trades at prices far below the automatic sell orders, or ‘stops’ they normally use to limit losses.

Currency market participants have urged the Bank of England to call on U.S. Federal Reserve if the turbulence gets really bad. The BoE could buy sterling with dollars borrowed directly from the U.S. central bank under arrangements first used in response to the global financial crisis in 2008.

Carney has said the Bank would not stand in the way of any exchange rate adjustment but would take the necessary steps to ensure markets remained orderly. It has not commented on whether or how the bank might intervene.

“MONEY TO BE MADE”

A senior source at one London bank said his firm had been building big reserves of sterling to lend out to any clients who get caught short by swirling asset valuations that require them to post extra security deposits with their trading partners.

Foreign exchange brokers such as PhillipCapital UK and Saxo Bank have raised the security deposit they demand from clients in order to trade, a step designed to offset the increased risk that customers get caught out by sharp moves.

One asset manager who declined to be named said his firm had run a test to see if it could cope with a 30 percent fall in sterling. The fund had increased its cash holdings and would have traders working overnight, ready to sell other assets in case it needed to raise more cash in a hurry.

Volatile markets not only put traders under pressure: they test the limits of the technology that underpin the market.

A source at the London Stock Exchange said volatility could spike on June 24 and that it was putting in emergency capacity for transaction reporting to cope with any spike in trading volumes that might otherwise overwhelm its systems.

A spokesperson for LSE declined to comment.

Despite facing a battle against surges in trading volumes, volatile prices and, at times, the absence of enough buyers or sellers to meet demand, some traders are rubbing their hands at the prospect of a night and day of high drama.

“You look forward to days like this,” said one bond trader at a major London bank. “There’s money to be made and lost … You’ve just got to hope you’re on the right side of it, not the one being carried out the door.”

(Additional reporting by Jamie McGeever, Anirban Nag, John Geddie, Dhara Ranasinghe, William Schomberg, Anjuli Davies, Andrew Macaskill, Lawrence White, Simon Jessop, Marc Jones and Maiya Keidan, Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Philippa Fletcher)

Britain warns of possible terrorist attacks in South Africa

The iconic Table Mountain is seen behind a popular tourist destination in Cape Town

By James Macharia

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Britain has warned of a high threat of attacks against foreigners in popular shopping malls in South Africa in an alert issued at the weekend, when a similar advisory was published by the United States embassy in Pretoria.

Africa’s most industrialized country has a significant expatriate and tourist population but has seldom been associated with Islamist militancy. South Africa’s government said the country was safe following the U.S. warning on Saturday.

It was not immediately clear what triggered the warnings. Security officials say there are no known militant groups operating in South Africa. It has only a small Muslim population.

The British government first issued its statement on Saturday and was marked as “still current” on its travel advice website on Monday.

The warning identified upmarket shopping areas and malls in the commercial hub of Johannesburg and Cape Town, widely regarded as South Africa’s tourism capital, as the main target areas in the suspected planned attacks.

“There is a high threat from terrorism. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreigners such as shopping areas in Johannesburg and Cape Town,” the British government said.

“There is considered to be a heightened threat of terrorist attack globally against UK interests and British nationals, from groups or individuals motivated by the conflict in Iraq and Syria. You should be vigilant at this time.”

On Saturday, the U.S. warned its citizens of possible attacks by Islamist militants on U.S. facilities or shopping malls in South Africa during the month of Ramadan.

The U.S. issued a similar warning in September, but no Islamist attack was reported.

State Security Minister David Mahlobo said in a statement that South Africa remained “a strong and stable democratic country”, adding that there was no immediate danger posed by the alert.

Analysts said that a terrorist attack in South Africa was feasible, citing economic hardships that could be a catalyst for radicalizing South Africa’s Muslims.

Economic growth is seen below one percent this year and unemployment is at its highest ever, near 27 percent.

“Both in terms of sources of financing from older religious conservative generations and of a growing community of economically side-lined, mostly young Muslims,” Robert Besseling, head of the EXX Africa business risk intelligence group said in a note.

Jasmine Opperman, the Africa Director for Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium (TRAC) said if Islamist extremist groups ever do decide to target South Africa, the nation is unprepared to protect itself.

“Shopping malls and tourist destinations are areas that are particularly prone to terror attacks,” Opperman wrote in a note.

“In South Africa, security is usually outsourced to private security companies, primarily aimed at preventing petty crimes such as theft,” she said.

Johannesburg’s Sandton City, one of Africa’s biggest shopping malls located in a wealthy business district, said it had improved security following the warnings.

Nomzamo Radebe, CEO of JHI Retail, the company that manages the shopping complex popular with tourists said they were “on high alert and additional security measures have been implemented,” said without giving details.

Islamists have attacked shopping malls on the continent before, including Kenya’s Westgate building where Somali militant group al Shabaab massacred at least 67 people, including foreigners, and held out for four days as security forces laid siege to the complex.

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)

UK would lose at least half million jobs if vote to leave EU

A British Union flag flutters in front of one of the clock faces of the 'Big Ben' clocktower of The Houses of Parliament in central London

EASTLEIGH, England (Reuters) – Britain would lose at least half a million jobs within two years of a vote to leave the European Union and a fall in the value of the pound would push up inflation sharply, finance minister George Osborne said on Monday.

With a month to go until Britain holds its European Union membership referendum, Osborne said workers’ earnings, when adjusted for inflation, would be almost 3 percent lower in two years’ time, equivalent to a pay cut worth almost 800 pounds a year for someone working full time on the average wage.

Osborne was speaking as the finance ministry published a new report on the short-term implications of an “Out” vote.

(Writing by William Schomberg, editing by Kate Holton)

NATO may rely on five battalions to deter Russia, Britain says

Soldiers from the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo march outside their camp close to the town of Vushtri, in northern Kosovo,

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO’s build-up in eastern Europe could include up to 3,500 troops, Britain said on Friday, stressing that the planned deployments would not be aggressive toward Russia.

Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014 has prompted the Western military alliance to consider deterrent forces in the Baltics and Poland which British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said would be a “trip wire” to alert NATO of any potential threat.

NATO defense ministers are expected to decide on the troop levels next month, while making clear no large forces will be stationed permanently, to avoid provoking the Kremlin.

“It looks like there could be four, maybe five battalions … the point of these formations is to act as a trip wire,” Hammond told reporters.

“It isn’t intended to be aggressive,” he said following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

Hammond said that could amount to as many as 3,500 troops along NATO’s border with Russia, with Britain, Germany and the United States taking the bulk of command duties.

In total, the deterrent will be made up of small eastern outposts, forces on rotation, regular war games and warehoused equipment ready for a rapid response force which would include air, maritime and special operations units.

NATO diplomats say the United States is likely to command two battalions, with Britain and Germany taking another each. That leaves a fifth NATO nation to come forward to lead the remaining battalion, with Denmark, Spain, Italy or the Netherlands seen as possible candidates, diplomats say.

The force build-up follows a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama in Estonia in 2014 in which he said NATO would help ensure the independence of the three Baltic states, which for decades were part of the Soviet Union.

NATO foreign ministers said they had agreed to propose to Moscow another meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, which met in April for the first time in nearly two years, to set out what the alliance says is a proportionate response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

NATO suspended all practical cooperation with Russia in April 2014 in protest over Crimea. NATO said high-level political contacts with Russia could continue but NATO and Russian ambassadors have met only three times since.

“We are doing things that could be misinterpreted,” Hammond said. “We judged that creating an opportunity through the NATO-Russia Council is the best way of avoiding Russia being able to say: ‘we haven’t been informed, we didn’t know the details.'”

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; editing by Andrew Roche)

Celebrities urge British government to reunite refugee children with families

Refugees and migrants children interact with each other at a temporary transit facility at the British sovereign base of Dhekelia in Cyprus

By Lin Taylor

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Celebrities, athletes and pop stars have urged the British government to do more to reunite unaccompanied refugee children with their families in Britain.

Launching a campaign by the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) on Friday, tennis champion Andy Murray and actor Roger Moore were among celebrities calling on the government to take in more lone children stranded at migrant camps across Europe.

According to UNICEF, tens of thousands of unaccompanied refugee children are stranded in Europe, even though many of them have relatives living in Britain.

“For these children the chance to be reunited with their family in the U.K. could be life-changing and (would) make sure they’re kept safe from violence, exploitation and abuse,” said Murray.

Olympic cycling gold medalist Chris Hoy said: “There are unaccompanied refugee children in Europe risking their lives to reach relatives in the UK despite having the legal right to be brought here safely. The government must do more to reunite [them].”

In one case cited by UNICEF, a 16-year-old refugee boy referred to as Bilal had left Syria when he was 14 to join his brother in London, and had had to travel alone for more than a year before the pair were reunited.

“When I made it to France, I had to wait in the Calais Jungle for seven months and it was a living hell,” Bilal was quoted as saying.

“I saw people die trying to escape. I saw people beaten to death in the camp… I want people like me, who have family in the UK, to come here and be safe. It is taking too long and too many children are suffering,” he said.

Prime Minister David Cameron has said that children fleeing the conflict in Syria are “relatively safe” once they reach Europe and that the government does not want to encourage more Syrians, including unaccompanied children, to attempt the hazardous journey to the West.

In April the Home Office (Interior Ministry) said that up to 3,000 Syrian and other child refugees from camps in the Middle East and North Africa are to be resettled in Britain over the next four years.

UNICEF said that if the Home Office had 10 more officials working to reunite families, all 157 lone children at the Calais camp who have relatives in Britain could be living with their families by September.

Other celebrities supporting the campaign included singers Jessie Ware, Emma Bunton and Rita Ora, actor Ewan McGregor, and model Claudia Schiffer.

(Reporting by Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Jo Griffin.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers humanitarian news, conflicts, land rights, modern slavery and human trafficking, women’s rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)

Britain says fighters intercept Russian aircraft approaching Baltic states

RAF Typhoons fly above RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland,

LONDON (Reuters) – British Typhoon fighter jets have intercepted three Russian military transport aircraft approaching the Baltic States, the defense ministry said on Thursday.

The British fighters, scrambled from the Amari air base in Estonia, intercepted the Russian aircraft, which were not transmitting a recognized identification code and were unresponsive, the ministry said.

“We were able to instantly respond to this act of Russian aggression – demonstration of our commitment to NATO’s collective defense,” Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said in a statement.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Andrew Roche)

Ex NATO and U.S. defense chiefs warn U.K. against an EU exit

Former NATO secretary-general Fogh Rasmussen speaks during a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev,

LONDON (Reuters) – Former NATO secretary generals warned on Tuesday that a British exit from the European Union would help enemies of the West while ex-U.S. foreign and defense chiefs cautioned that Britain would have less clout outside the bloc.

The double warning comes as the two campaigns for and against Brexit step up their rhetoric about the impact staying or leaving the EU would have on Britain’s security.

Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday that Britain was safer in the EU while former London mayor Boris Johnson, a member of his Conservative Party, accused him of suggesting World War Three would break out should Britons vote to leave in a referendum on June 23.

The five ex-NATO chiefs – Peter Carrington, Javier Solana, George Robertson, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Anders Fogh Rasmussen – said the imposition of EU sanctions against Russia and Iran, a move led by Britain, showed the importance of the bloc.

“Brexit would undoubtedly lead to a loss of British influence, undermine NATO and give succor to the West’s enemies just when we need to stand should-to-shoulder across the Euro-Atlantic community against common threats,” they wrote in a letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

In a separate letter to the Times, 13 former U.S. secretaries of state and defense and national security advisers from every U.S. administration from Barack Obama’s to Jimmy Carter’s in the 1970s said Britain’s global position would suffer if it left the EU.

“We are concerned that should the UK choose to leave the European Union, the UK’s place and influence in the world would be diminished and Europe would be dangerously weakened,” said the letter signed by, among others, former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Madeleine Albright.

Their warning echoes a similar message from Obama during the U.S. president’s visit to Britain last month.

Those campaigning for Brexit have repeatedly dismissed such warnings, saying membership of NATO, rather than the EU, was key to British security.

In a sign of deepening divisions within Cameron’s own party, Iain Duncan Smith, the former Work and Pensions Secretary, said Germany had sabotaged the prime minister’s plans to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU, forcing him to drop his plans to demand an emergency brake on migration.

“They have a de facto veto over everything,” Duncan Smith told Tuesday’s Sun newspaper which accompanied their story with a picture of German Chancellor Angela Merkel holding a puppet Cameron.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Bleak picture reigns as EU presidents debate future of Europe

European Parliament President Schulz and European Commission President Juncker talk during a meeting at the Capitol Hill in Rome

By Crispian Balmer

ROME (Reuters) – The presidents of Europe’s three main institutions on Thursday presented a bleak picture of the European Union, saying the 28-nation bloc lacked leadership and was descending into petty, nationalistic politics.

“We have a lot of salesmen in the European Council and only a few statesmen,” said Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, bemoaning the current crop of EU government chiefs who are struggling to overcome a string of crises.

Schulz joined European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU Council President Donald Tusk for a debate on the future of Europe in the room where the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957, which laid the foundations of today’s European Union.

“The idea of one EU state, one vision … was an illusion,” said Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, who is now tasked with finding consensus and cohesion amongst EU leaders.

Such unity has become an almost impossible mission at a time when hundreds of thousands of migrants are fleeing into Europe in search of a better life, sending a shockwave through the staid and conservative continent.

Britain, the Union’s second biggest economy, is due to hold a referendum in June on whether to withdrawal from the bloc.

Years of economic underperformance, particularly in the continent’s southern rim, have also frayed the fabric of European solidarity.

“PART-TIME EUROPEANS”

“We have full-time Europeans when it comes to taking and part-time Europeans when it comes to giving,” said a particularly downbeat Juncker, adding that the “part time” Europeans were often those who received most from EU funds — a clear reference to new member states from the east.

Without naming names, Tusk also said that the newcomers were often the most opposed to finding a common policy on the migration crisis “sometimes in a very irritating fashion”.

Italy and Greece are the main ports of entry for the migrants but say they should then be sent on to other European countries to share the burden.

However, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have rejected European Commission plans to introduce mandatory quotas of refugees and have accused Brussels of trying to blackmail them.

Juncker, a former Luxembourg prime minister who has been at the heart of EU policy making for three decades, reminisced about the time when Europe moved towards economic union and created the single euro currency.

“In former times we were working together … we were in charge of a big piece of history. This has totally gone,” he said, complaining that EU citizens did not understand what the European Union was trying to do.

“This is fertile ground for the populists.”

Tusk, Juncker and Schulz are in Rome for the presentation of the Charlemagne Prize to Pope Francis on Friday. The prize is awarded to people who are seen to have furthered the cause of European unification.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Lebanese military gets U.S., British aid for defending border with Syria

US Helicopters in Lebanon

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s armed forces acquired three U.S. helicopters worth $26 million on Thursday to help in efforts to stop Syria’s civil war spilling over its border, along with almost $29 million of British aid as EU countries also step up their support.

The Lebanese armed forces have now received a total of nine Huey II multi-mission helicopters from the United States as part of $1.3 billion in security assistance given since 2004, U.S. interim Ambassador Richard H. Jones said.

“We have no plans to slow down or alter that level of support,” Jones said at Beirut’s military air base.

Fighting between Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front militants often overlaps Lebanon’s mountainous northern border with Syria, where a civil war is now in its fifth year.

Fighters briefly overran the northern Lebanese town of Arsal in 2014 before withdrawing to the hills after clashes with the army. Fighting in the border area killed at least 32 Nusra and Islamic State fighters this week.

The helicopters will improve the army’s ability to quickly reinforce “remote areas of tension along the border in support of the army’s fight against terrorists”, Jones said.

Lebanon has a weak government and a number of nations support its armed forces, concerned that regional conflict and a power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia could again destabilise a country which emerged from its own civil war 26 years ago.

On a visit to Lebanon on Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond announced a further $22 million for border guard training through to 2019 and $6.5 million for general training of 5,000 Lebanese troops. “Lebanon is an important part of the front line against terrorism,” Hammond said.

“We are delighted by the way the UK support is being translated into strengthened border security and is enabling the armed forces to take the fight to Daesh and keep Lebanon safe from the incursions of Daesh,” he said, referring to Islamic State.

EU foreign policy head Federica Mogherini, who visited Lebanon last week, said that Lebanon’s security was important for Europe’s safety too and the EU was willing to expand its support for the Lebanese armed forces.

In February Saudi Arabia suspended a $3 billion aid package for the Lebanese army in what an official called a response to Beirut’s failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

Lebanon’s Iranian-backed group Hezbollah is also a significant military presence in the country, with extensive combat experience. It fought Israel in an inconclusive 2006 war and is supporting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington and Issam Abdallah; Editing by Mark Heinrich)