President Obama’s visit to the UK this week may on the surface be to say farewell as he prepares to leave office, but it has long been planned for something very different and much more controversial.
The soon to be ex-President has been given a very important job by the British Prime Minister. He will spend some of his time telling the British public to vote to remain in the European Union in the forthcoming referendum.
Like millions of others, I find this totally unacceptable.
Whether you are pro-Brexit, as I am, or a Remainer, there is no doubt that Obama’s intervention in the EU debate is insulting, patronising and hypocritical.
While it is natural that Obama should have an opinion on this crucial matter, he of all people must see how bad it looks that he is travelling thousands of miles to lecture a foreign power on its destiny.
Of course he is also calling on Her Majesty the Queen to wish her a happy 90th birthday, another clever move designed to show him as a decent guy!
No doubt Her Majesty was given little choice about meeting him.
It strikes me that there is an odour of reverse colonialism from this figure, who is not affected by our EU membership.
But, far more important than any arguments about perception, it is the reality of what Obama is doing that is so dangerous.
By endorsing the UK’s continued membership of the EU, he is misleading anybody who listens to him.
The absolute certainty is that America would never dream of entering into anything like the doomed EU project.
The idea of the US giving away billions of dollars each year as a club membership fee and assuming a submissive role in areas like law and immigration is too ridiculous to contemplate.
Remember, this is a country that doesn’t even sign up to the Convention on the Law of the Sea or recognise the rulings of the International Criminal Court at the Hague over American citizens.
The North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement linking the USA with Canada and Mexico is exactly what it says on the tin – a Free Trade Agreement. Unlike the EU, it didn’t need an unelected Commission, an anthem, a flag, and layers of expensive bureaucrats to make it happen.
Let’s pretend that in an imaginary world, America was being held hostage by an arrangement resembling the EU project, and then had the chance to break free from such a stranglehold. Does anyone really think that Obama would not be advocating doing just that?
There is no way that the ‘land of the free’ would ever share its sovereignty with a remote and unaccountable block of nations. This is what makes Obama’s intervention so hard to swallow.
He appears to have agreed to make these pro-EU noises as a personal favour to David Cameron, who is now looking increasingly desperate as June 23 nears.
I have spent the last two months travelling widely across our country to address rallies and meetings putting the case for Brexit.
The reception I and other MPs have had has been overwhelming.
People who have never been involved in political discussion before have come to listen. I have shared platforms with many people from other political parties with whom I have little in common other than our desire to see our country be free and independent again, trading with the world and controlling our own borders.
Every single person on the electoral roll has that stake in the historic decision to be taken on June 23. It is about our country and whether we will face the future with confidence looking outwards to the world and not inwards to a shrinking and increasingly anti democratic EU.
The conversation is for us in the UK and we are having it now and for the next two months.
Obama has no stake in this. As the outgoing leader of a friendly nation which once fought for its independence from us, he must know that.
It would be laughable if it were not so serious.
I trust the British public will not be fooled by any speech he makes on the EU.
With respect, Mr President, a good friend doesn’t presume to advocate for us what he doesn’t want for himself. A good friend will support us in making our own decision. Please come back and see us when we have made that decision.
You will be very welcome to help us celebrate OUR Independence Day !