Former U.K. Finance minister Nigel Lawson calls for EU exit

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Former U.K. Finance minister, Nigel Lawson has called for Britain to exit European Union on Tuesday to put more pressure on the Prime Minister David Cameron, who is currently in support of Britain’s membership of the union.

Writing in the Times newspaper, Mr. Lawson has insisted that the “case” for withdrawal is now clear and urged Britain to sever its 40-year association with Brussels through voting ‘no’ in a referendum on EU membership.

Mr. Lawson, who has now become the most senior member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party to call for Britain to leave the EU, has written: “In my judgement the economic gains would substantially outweigh the costs.”

Mr. Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum on EU membership after the next general election in 2015, but is now under pressure to hold a “mandate referendum” as early as next spring to seek public approval of his strategy of putting a renegotiated settlement to an in/out vote by 2017. However, Mr. Cameron wants to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU before putting it to a vote, and is “confident” that his strategy “will deliver results”.

Lord Lawson, who previously voted for Britain to join the EU in 1975 – is now claiming to back U.K. exit in 2017 as it would save Britain’s valuable financial sector from a “frenzy of regulatory activism”.

While Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrat of coalition partner Nick Clegg, has showed concerns that leaving the bloc would make Britain to be in an unsafe position.

He has told: “I think if we were to leave the European Union we would jeopardise up to three million jobs in this country.

“We would make ourselves less safe — we work in the European Union to go after criminals who cross borders, it would be more difficult to deal with environmental challenges which cross borders.”

“I think we need to reform the European Union to make it more transparent, more efficient, more democratic where we can but not turn our backs on it because doing so would make us less safe and less prosperous.”

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