European Union needs Britain ‘MORE than we need them’
The former Dragons’ Den star slammed David Cameron’s attempts to renegotiate Britain’s EU deal as a “big pantomime” as he spoke on Question Time on Thursday night. Discussing whether Mr Cameron has done enough to persuade the public that the UK should remain in the EU, Mr Paphitis said: “It seems like a big pantomime. When will we be told facts? There’s been no facts, just scaremongering from both sides.
“As for this renegotiation, I’m struggling to see why it makes any difference why we are in or we are out.”
Broadcaster June Sarpong, who has joined the campaign to stay in the EU, argued three million jobs could be at risk if Britain abandons Brussels.
She said: “We will be poorer if we leave the EU. We have three million British jobs linked to the EU that could be at risk.
“Why would we want to leave a leadership position in the biggest trading block in the world?”
However, the business tycoon responded by saying: “They [EU] need us more than we need them.”
He said the EU trading block is the “only trading block that is declining, the rest of the world is actually growing”.
Members of the Question Time audience in Stratford Upon-Avon were less than convinced by the maligned Prime Minister.
One said: “I think we should have a Prime Minister for the UK and not Europe, I don’t know if he is fighting for the UK.”
Another added: “Our infrastructure cannot cope with the mass migration and if Turkey join the EU, no matter what Cameron gets for us now, it is not going to be enough.”
One member labelled the deal as “smoke and mirrors” and that “he has no chance of delivering anything”.
In Brussels, French president Francois Hollande said the EU is at stake and “not simply one country of the EU”.
Source; The Express, Charlie Peat, 20 February 2016