ALISTAIR Darling believes it will be the Remain camp’s economic argument that will “clinch it” for the In campaign next Thursday as David Cameron made clear he felt "confident" the public would choose to keep Britain part of the European Union.
The former Labour chancellor, in an interview with The Herald, stressed that the In camp was not taking anything for granted and that the contest was “finely balanced” on a knife edge. With a week to go much more was needed to be done to “win hearts and minds” and the pro-EU lobby had to get “stuck in”.
But the former Edinburgh MP said he believed Remain’s victory, as in the Scottish independence campaign, would be based on the economy. “That economic argument will clinch it at the end of the day and expose some of the nonsense being talked on the Leave side.”
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Asked about whether the In camp was engaging in far too much fearmongering, Lord Darling said: “Firstly, nothing is more fearful than basing a campaign on the fear of immigration, which is what the Leave campaign are doing.
“Secondly, I’m not going to be stopped from asking hard questions when it’s increasingly obvious there are no answers. Rather like in the Scottish referendum campaign I asked repeatedly what would happen if oil prices fell and I was told they wouldn’t.
“I’m asking now a whole series of questions, particularly about what would happen to our economy when every independent expert in the UK and outside say the same thing: that we would take a hit. It’s a reality check; it’s not scaremongering.”
The former chancellor also commented on the prospect of a second independence should Scotland be taken out of the EU against its will, saying he did not believe Nicola Sturgeon wanted a second poll anytime soon.
The Labour peer noted: “Nicola Sturgeon is in no hurry to have a second referendum because she can see the figures as well as anybody else can and if she had a referendum tomorrow, she would lose it and she doesn’t want to do that, which is why the rhetoric has been toned down over the last few months and you’re now hearing Nationalists saying we’ll have to wait and see.
“The majority in Scotland do not want another referendum full stop,” declared Lord Darling.
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Meantime, the Prime Minister in an interview on Channel Four was accused of not having "a passion for Europe". He replied: "I don't accept that. I'm not a utopian dreamer. I believe in the United Kingdom and in Britain and in our future but we are better off safer and stronger as part of a European Union."
Earlier, Mr Cameron told the London Evening Standard that there would be a “real Remain dividend” with an In vote. “If we wake up on June 24 and we are still in the EU, there will be a sense of excitement and investment from inward investors and wealth creators."
However, Boris Johnson for Vote Leave argued that Britain's economy could "go global" if it quit the EU.
Writing in the same paper, he said: "Locked in the EU, we cannot do free trade deals with some of the fastest-growing economies - in south-east Asia, China, India or the Americas - because our trade policy is entirely controlled by the EU Commission, where only 3.6 per cent of officials come from this country.”
Today, at a Labour In event in Manchester former premier Gordon Brown will team up with John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, to claim households could be better off by £1,320 by voting for a “Labour Remain and rejecting a Tory Brexit,” which would ensure the UK received its fair share of funding from the European Investment Bank.
Elsewhere, Home Secretary Theresa May made a rare intervention in the In-Out debate, saying the UK Government should "should look at further reform" of free movement of people, if the UK voted to stay in the EU.
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