Britain would be like North Korea, without friends or influence, if it left the European Union, Gordon Brown said last night.
The former prime minister, who has signalled that he wants to take a leading role in any post-election Labour campaign on Britain’s EU membership, made the claim in The Guardian.
“We must tell the truth about the three million jobs, 25,000 companies, £200 billion of annual exports and the £450 billion of inward investment linked to Europe; and how the ‘Britzerland’ or Norwegian alternatives leave us subject to EU rules but denied a vote in shaping them,” he said.
“And we must talk about how the Hong Kong option — ‘leaving Europe to join the world’ — is really the North Korea option, out in the cold with few friends, no influence, little new trade and even less new investment.”
David Cameron has promised an EU referendum by 2017, while Labour has said that it will hold a referendum if there is a proposal to transfer further powers to Brussels.
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Mr Brown said that it would be “sheer defeatism to cast ourselves, as sceptics do, as helpless victim, impotent bystanders unable to influence events.
“Our destiny is not a bit player on someone else’s stage, or a spectator hectoring from the wings, but always setting the agenda, bringing people together, and championing change.”