Steve Byas – Great Britain will stage a national referendum on June 23 on whether to leave the European Union.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has made it clear that he supports continued British membership in the EU, and admits that his efforts to win “concessions” from the EU’s 27 other member states are designed to make the EU more palatable to its opponents in his own country.
Those concessions, however, are illusory and would not be legally binding. This is the clear position of Nigel Farage, a British member of the European Parliament, and the leader of Britain’s United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), who challenged European Council President Donald Tusk about the concessions Cameron hopes to win.
“But is this deal legally binding, Mr. Tusk?” Farage asked. “The ECJ [European Court of Justice] rule[s] in favor of the existing treaties until we get a new treaty. But who is to say there is going to be a new treaty? Any new treaty would trigger yet more referendums and would not be favored by the big groups in this parliament.”
Farage pointed to the “migrant crisis” as a reason for Britain (and other European nations) to “take back control of our own borders and our own democracy” and leave the EU.