A Brexit fishing flotilla sailed up the River Thames Wednesday ahead of next week’s knife-edge referendum over EU membership as Germany warned a British departure could start Europe’s “disintegration.”
Around 30 fishing boats floated past Tower Bridge, sounding their foghorns and displaying anti-EU signs, led by UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage in a protest against EU fisheries policy.
Events then took a bizarre turn when pro-EU rocker Bob Geldof pulled up in a rival boat, shouting “Nigel you’re a fraud” through a loudspeaker, only to be hosed with water from a “Leave” boat.
They set off after Prime Minister David Cameron’s government warned that leaving the European Union in the referendum on June 23 would cause such economic turmoil that tax hikes and spending cuts would quickly follow.
A series of opinion polls have shown the Brexit camp gaining ground, prompting German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to issue a stark warning of the risks to the rest of the bloc.
“It would be a shock for the EU that would require mutual assurances that the EU continues to stick together and that a very successful decades-long process of integration doesn’t in the end turn into disintegration,” he said in Brandenburg.
Speaking at a joint press conference with French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault, he added: “We can both say that we want the majority in Britain to make the right decision, and the right decision from our point of view can only be to remain in Europe.”
“Europe would be lacking a lot if Great Britain decided to leave,” he said. Meanwhile, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who is campaigning for Britain to remain in the 28-member bloc, said that schools, hospitals and the army would all have their funding slashed if Britons vote to leave.
In a harsh government warning on the economic implications of a Brexit, Osborne said leaving the EU would blast a £30-billion ($42.4-billion, 37.9-billion-euro) hole in national finances.
In response, the basic rate of income tax would be raised, inheritance tax would be hiked, and the budget for services including the state-run National Health Service (NHS) would be cut, he said.
“Quitting the EU would hit investment, hurt families and harm the British economy,” he said.
“I would have a responsibility to try to restore stability to the public finances and that would mean an emergency budget where we would have to increase taxes and cut spending.”
Osborne’s warning came as opinion polls indicate a surge of support for the Brexit camp, putting pressure on global markets.
But deputies from Osborne’s own Conservative party slammed the “blackmail budget” and vowed to vote against it.

Source: Arab News