UK quitting EU would be a disaster, says Labour Party

The UK Labour Party has hardened its opposition to leaving the European Union, drawing a dividing line with the Conservatives less than eight months before next year’s general election.

Labour’s spokesmen on finance and on foreign affairs, Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander respectively, used speeches to the party’s annual convention in Manchester, yesterday to stress the economic gains of remaining in the EU and warn the Tories against harming the national interest by exiting the bloc.

“We’re not going to earn our way to higher living standards by walking away from our biggest single market,” Mr Balls said. “Let us say loud and clear, walking away from Europe would be a disaster for British jobs and investment.”

Primer Minister David Cameron has pledged to hold an in-or-out referendum on EU membership if his party wins the May election. That commitment has concerned business leaders.

“We do not believe that Airbus Group would have achieved what it has in the UK to date without this country being an integral part of the EU,” its chief executive Robin Southwell told the conference. “Our operations here simply could not have grown to the scale and breadth that we enjoy today if we were unable to enjoy the unfettered movement of people, capital, resource and technology that the present arrangement provides.”

Mr Alexander said Mr Cameron had spent the past four years of his premiership “burning bridges” in Europe rather than building alliances with fellow EU countries.

“Like British business, we understand that sleepwalking toward exit is not just bad politics, it’s disastrous economics. Britain leaving Europe would present the biggest threat to British national prosperity in a generation.”

John Cridland, director general of the Confederation of British Industry, welcomed Labour’s commitment. His group is “clear that we need to be at the heart of a reformed EU” because the bloc is the UK’s biggest export market.