President Barack Obama 'saves PM’s bacon’

If the UK decides to remain in the European Union it will be in no small measure thanks to a remarkable speech today by President Barack Obama.

The 'Remain in the EU' campaign have desperately struggled to make their case, whilst the ‘Brexiters’ have become more emboldened with their often ‘little Englander’, anti-foreigner rhetoric.

But in one the most powerful speeches Obama has made on an international stage, he has probably single handedly defeated every argument the Brexiters have. Above all, this idea that the UK ‘special relationship would survive the UK’s exit from the EU, was shockingly put to the sword .

The President said in his speech that an isolated UK would go to the ‘back of the queue’ in regards to trade deals with the US . The US, he said wants to deal with trading blocks, and the UK should be at the heart of the EU block.

And on the thorny issue of immigration Obama again, pushed back on the ‘send them all back’ mentality stating that immigration can be very good for a nation.

With enemies all around him particularly from his own party, The Prime Minister David Cameron could not believe his luck. Tomorrow’s newspapers will run with the headline: ‘UK back of the trade queue , if we leave’.

Obama, nevertheless reinstated that the US and the UK are very close, and that he admired both the Queen and the Prime Minister. Earlier on the day the Brexit big hitter Boris Johnson was accused of ‘dog whistling racism’, when he suggested that the President had no love for the UK because he had Kenyan heritage - a not so subtle reference that his grandfather was interned by the British army during the Mao Mao uprising.

President Obama answered Johnson the only way he knows, not with slander but facts, and a politics that make the world a better place.

Simon Woolley