UK out of the Euro

UK out of the Euro

Good afternoon. We’re near the end of a frenetic campaign.

I want to pause and speak to you very directly and personally about the momentous decision this country faces in just two days’ time. For six years I’ve had the responsibility and the honour of being your Prime Minister and I want to tell you why, doing this job, I feel so strongly that Britain should remain in Europe. Above all it is about our economy, it will be stronger if we stay, it will be weaker if we leave and that is a huge risk to Britain, to British families, to British jobs and it is irreversible. There is no going back.

And it’s also about our national security too. My first responsibility is to keep you safe. Some of the most important moments behind that door are when you’re reading the intelligence reports, taking in the most chilling details about those who are planning to do us harm. My job is to act, to make the right call, to use every tool at my disposal to protect our country, to protect you, to protect your children. I would not be standing here encouraging you to vote to remain in the EU if I thought the EU stopped me from doing that. The reality is the opposite: our membership of the EU helps me. I’ve seen first-hand in these dangerous times how we can better co-operate with our friends and neighbours; how we can share information, track terrorists down, bring them to justice; how alongside key allies like the French and the Germans we’re more effective at facing down threats and keeping people safe. I’ve seen it time and again at a very practical level that we are safer in Europe than out on our own.

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Being a member of the EU also gives us strength in the world. We aren’t any old country; we are a special country, one whose language, whose values, whose influence is felt the world over. If I felt that remaining in the EU diminished us I would recommend we voted to leave but it doesn’t - it amplifies our power, when we’re in these organisations we become an even bigger force in the world, with a bigger influence in the world and in the EU with 27 countries behind us we can take a stronger lead in tackling climate change, fighting disease and poverty, standing up to Russian aggression, helping friends around the world in south-east Asia, Australasia, the Caribbean. And we can promote and preserve the values we hold so dear like democracy, like freedom, like tolerance.

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That’s how our extraordinary country has always made its influence felt – not by walking away from the world but by engaging with it. Brits don’t quit. We get involved, we take a lead, we make a difference we get things done. If we left our neighbours would go on meeting and making decisions that profoundly affect us, affect our country, affect our jobs but we wouldn’t be there. They would be making decisions about us but without us.

Above all, being a member of the EU is about our economy security. The reason I came into politics was to help people to lead a better life – to have a good job, to earn a better wage, have the chance to own a home, to provide for your family and your retirement. That’s why the thing I’ve focused on most over the past six years in that building is sorting out our economy. I know I haven’t got every decision right and I know not everyone has been happy with what I’ve done. But of this I am convinced, indeed of this every living Prime Minister, whether Labour or Conservative, is convinced: Britain is better off inside the EU than out on our own. At the heart of that is the Single Market, 500 million customers on our doorstep, a source of so many jobs, so much trade and such a wealth of opportunity for our young people. Leaving the EU would put all that at risk. Expert after expert, independent advisers, people whose job is to warn Prime Ministers, have said it would shrink our economy – in the short term facing recession, in the medium term enduring a decade of uncertainty and in the long term living with fewer jobs, lower wages and higher prices.

These are risks to our families and we should not take them – in particular it will be future generations the apprentices and the graduates starting out in life, the children learning in our schools, those yet to be born – they will be hit hardest. It’s for that reason I want to speak very directly to those of my generation and older – I know Europe isn’t perfect, believe me I understand and I see those frustrations, I feel them myself. That’s why we negotiated and enhanced our special status – out of the Euro, keeping our borders, not involved in Ever Closer Union – we have the best of both worlds, so as you take this decision whether to remain or leave, do think about the hopes and dreams of your children and grandchildren – they know their chances to work, to travel, to build the sort of open society they want to live in rest on this outcome. And remember they can’t undo the decision we take, if we vote out that’s it, it is irreversible, we will leave Europe for good and the next generation will have to live with the consequence far longer than the rest of us.

For the next two days, up and down the country, in homes, in pubs, in the staffroom at work, on the train on the way home, the conversations will continue – In or Out? But on Thursday those conversations will stop, it will just be you in that polling booth, just you taking a decision that will affect your future, your children’s future, your grandchildren’s future – I believe very deeply from my years of experience that we will be safer, we will be stronger, we will be better off.

That is a risk to jobs, a risk to families, a risk to our children's future and there is no going back. So this Thursday remember who we are as a nation, remember how far we’ve come and how much more we can achieve and for you, for your family, for the future of our country, vote remain. Thank you.