A leading Eurosceptic cabinet minister has compared the European Union to the Titanic heading towards a huge iceberg as she set out a case for a British exit.
Priti Patel, the employment minister, takes aim in today’s Times at “risible” claims that Britain would be frozen out of a free trade deal with the rest of Europe if it left.
She wrote as Sajid Javid, the business secretary, prepares to defend his decision to back staying in the EU to an audience of business leaders.
Mr Javid and George Osborne, the chancellor, will address the British Chambers of Commerce. Mr Osborne is expected to say that leaving the EU would expose companies to the “worst of all worlds”.
Ms Patel, however, says that leaving would not be a leap in the dark, claiming that smaller and more innovative businesses were being held back by the EU. “Entrepreneurs are increasingly suffocated by EU rules and have little influence in shaping them. They can less afford expensive lobbyists or large compliance departments to cope with the stream of regulations from Brussels. As a result, disruptive technology is rejected to preserve the dominance of the incumbents.”
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Seeking to reverse the argument that leaving the EU would be a risk, Ms Patel argues that staying would yoke Britain’s future to a dysfunctional eurozone blighted by unemployment and unsustainable welfare systems.
While Mr Javid — once touted as a potential champion of the Brexit campaign — has said that deepening European integration would present Britain with the opportunity to demand further reform, Ms Patel says the UK would be at the mercy of “another huge centralisation of power in Brussels planned for after our referendum . . . We will be outvoted even more than we are now. UK taxpayers and businesses will be paying the bills for the eurozone’s failure and inevitable bailouts.”
