The United Kingdom should leave the European Union now rather than wait for it to collapse, writes former Ambassador John Bolton.
Bolton, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under President George W. Bush, argues in a
New York Daily News op-ed that the UK would be smart to exit the struggling EU before things get worse.
Bolton believes President Barack Obama's
warning to the UK not to abandon its place in the EU was both unwarranted and factually wrong.
"President Obama's threat that a British exit from the European Union would harm the United Kingdom economically may well backfire," Bolton writes. "Not only did Obama unnecessarily intrude into a British domestic debate — Brexit, as it's now known — he did so by crassly threatening to downgrade U.S.-U.K. trade relations.
"The President and the rest of us need to take deep breaths. In assessing the economic consequences of Brexit, pro-European Union analysts give the impression that leaving the Union would cast Britain into the outer darkness: isolated, ignored and impoverished.
"Such results, of course, were also confidently predicted when London kept the British pound rather than adopting the Euro. None of it happened."
Bolton notes "the EU is a newcomer" in the old and culturally diverse Europe, so Britain's exit — if it chooses to do so — may not have the negative effects some are worried about.
"It makes sense for Britain exit now rather than wait until disaster strikes," Bolton writes. "Obama should be smart enough to understand that."
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