How bad can it get? As bad as Guernsey?

Sunday 19 June 2016

It’s a fact – Guernsey is now being used as an example of just how bad it could get if the UK votes to leave the EU on Thursday.

Jersey residents will be having a chuckle after France’s Economy Minister yesterday said leaving the European Union would make the UK as significant in world politics as Guernsey.

Emmanuel Macron said the UK would become "a little country on the world scale [that] would isolate itself... at Europe's border."

He said the EU should send "a very firm message" about the consequences of a British vote to leave the bloc.

But ‘Vote Leave’ activists in the UK said French ministers wanted Britain to stay in the EU and carry on paying millions to it.

Mr Macron said: "Leaving the EU would mean the 'Guernseyfication' of the UK, which would then be a little country on the world scale. It would isolate itself and become a trading post and arbitration place at Europe's border."

He added that the European Council would have to deliver an ultimatum to the UK about its intentions and that France's President Hollande would be very clear.

"If the UK wants a treaty of commercial access to the European market, the British will have to contribute to the European budget like the Norwegians or the Swiss. If London doesn't want that, then the exit will have to be total," Mr Macron said.

Despite his federalist stance, Mr Macron said the British referendum did mark the end of an era for the EU.

He said: "I believe in Europe, but in its reorganisation. It's the end of an ultra-liberal Europe that has lost its political direction. The European project cannot only be held together by a system of abolishing rules."

Vote Leave said Mr Macron's comment "sums up the Remain campaign" which it said had "nothing positive to say about Britain."

A spokesman added: "Of course French ministers want Britain to stick in the EU so we can continue to hand Brussels £350m every week.

"Instead of subsidising French farmers we should take back control and spend our money on our priorities like the NHS."