British prime minister David Cameron has said Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster is "fundamentally wrong" that the United Kingdom could negotiate better trade deals if it decides to leave the European Union.
Rejecting charges he has tried to frighten voters before next Thursday’s referendum, he said: “I don’t think giving people the facts can be described as scaremongering,” he told Fermanagh newspaper the Impartial Reporter.
Last week Ms Foster said the UK “can stand on our own feet”, suggesting it could have “free trade agreements with a lot of other countries” if it left the EU.
Strongly disagreed
However, Mr Cameron strongly disagreed: “Arlene Foster is fundamentally wrong in her assertion about free trade agreements,” he told the Impartial Reporter.
“It’s all very well saying we could sign lots of deals ourselves. But that’s not the way these deals work in this day and age. The best free trade deals are done between large blocs,” he said.
An EU exit "puts the open Border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland at risk," he said. "We don't know for certain what a new travel regime might be."
Supporters of an EU exit have “not spelt out in any detail at all” what arrangements would operate, since “for the first time the UK would be outside, but sharing a land border with an EU country.
“For the first time since it joined, the Republic would share a border with a non-EU country. People might say ‘well, the Common Travel Area has been in existence since the 1920s, that would just continue regardless’.
"But a lot has changed since then. Indeed, many in the Irish Parliament, the Irish Government and indeed two of my predecessors as prime minister, have all suggested the agreement might become redundant if the UK leaves the EU."
‘Think very carefully’
People should " think very carefully" about the practical implications of a Brexit vote in terms of visiting "one another's hospitals and airports, or just to see friends and relatives down the road".
Saying an open Border is “in fact really important to daily life in Border counties”, the prime minister warned about “the symbolic implications” of passport checks, if Brexit happened.
Then, he said, there is the “similarly unpalatable prospect of checks on people from Northern Ireland travelling within the UK. Life could look very different for people in the Border counties and beyond.”
UK exports would be subjected to so-called rules of origin that would require customs procedures of some sort at the North-South land Border that would mean added time and costs, which “hit jobs and slow growth”.
Describing an UK exit as a “a leap in the dark”, Mr Cameron said it would seriously affect Northern Ireland farmers, many of whom rely on the European Union’s single farm payment.
“If we left, we’d lose our say, but still have to follow the rules on everything we sold to the EU, which at the moment is 60 per cent of farming exports,” he warned.
Regarding Canadian-like trade quotas and tariffs of up to 70 per cent on beef, along with non-trade barriers, he said: “In the single market, we can break down these barriers so they don’t hinder our farmers. Outside, we can’t.
"That's why, as one example, America buys absolutely no beef from Britain, because it imposed a ban that we cannot challenge. In the EU we are able to overturn such bans, as we did in 2001 when France banned British beef."
Peace process
Asked whether an EU exit would damage the Northern Ireland peace process, Mr Cameron quoted his predecessor John Major’s declaration that peace had come on the back of painstaking years of negotiation.
The talks had set the political framework for Northern Ireland, and between the UK and Republic of Ireland, he said. “We should think very carefully before doing anything that puts any of the framework at risk.”
Saying an exit would be a risk for both the Republic and Northern Ireland, Mr Cameron declared: “It would take us backwards when we should be looking forwards.”
Today, thousands cross the Border daily for work, tourists travel safely and trade flows easily. “If you do anything to harden that Border, it’s clear you harm the people on both sides of it,” the prime minister said.