LONDON (Reuters) – US President Barack Obama implored young British people yesterday not to pull back from the world, a day after sparking a row by bluntly telling Britain it should remain in the European Union to preserve its remaining global clout.
Obama angered critics of the EU on Friday by warning that Britain would be at “the back of the queue” for a trade deal if it left the club – one of the strongest US interventions in the affairs of a western European democracy since the Cold War.
Speaking to about 550 invited British young people at a “town hall” event yesterday, Obama sought to pitch a more optimistic message to young Britons, who are considered to be more pro-European, if less active, voters than their parents.
Obama said he wanted young people to reject the cynicism piped towards them by TV and Twitter, and he lauded both the European Union and NATO for sustaining peace and prosperity in Europe after centuries of war and strife.
“Think about how extraordinary that is: For more than 1,000 years this continent was darkened by war and violence. It was taken for granted. It was assumed that was the fate of man,” Obama said at Lindley Hall in London.
“We see new calls for isolationism, for xenophobia,” Obama said. “When I speak to young people, I implore them, and I implore you, to reject those calls to pull back.”
Joking about Britain’s colonial past, Obama cited a “tea incident” and said that the British had burned down his house – references to the 1773 Boston Tea Party protest and to the burning of the White House in 1814 by British troops.
But he stressed that the two nations had put their quarrels behind them to ensure a more stable and freer world.
