The Labour Party has been accused of “scaremongering” and being “unaware of the international situation” as it claims Britain leaving the EU would please Vladimir Putin.
And leader Ed Miliband was also accused of “running scared” of an referendum on the EU despite calling David Cameron a “chicken” for refusing to take part in a head-to-head debate ahead of the May election, the Express reports.
It came as shadow Europe Minister Pat McFadden called the Prime Minister’s policy of calling for tougher action from the EU over Russian aggression in the Ukraine while threatening to leave the EU should the UK not get the changes he is asking for.
“The European Union has stood together to agree sanctions against Russia in response to its proxy war in Ukraine,”Mr McFadden said in a speech to Left-wing think tank the Fabian Society.
“While Eurosceptics crave the breaking of ties to the EU the security situation demands common action and resolve.”
But his words were slammed by Tory MP Peter Bone who said, “The idea that President Putin has any opinion on an EU referendum is outlandish.
“To claim it will risk our security is rubbish. It is not the EU that has kept peace in Europe, it is Nato.
“Labour are running scared of an EU referendum because they don’t trust the British people.”
UKIP Deputy Leader Paul Nuttall said the statement was “funny given that the Old Labour Party used to import a lot if their ideas from Communist Russia.”
“The UK breaking away from the EU would give us back control of our own foreign policy and allow us to formulate our own responses to international situations like the one we have with Russia at the moment, rather than being dictated to by Brussels.”
Earlier this week former Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed Britain would become like North Korea if it left the EU – despite well respected think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs releasing a report showing the claim that 3-4 million jobs are depended on political union was nonsense.
Labour leader Ed Miliband has also claimed that allowing the British people to have a democratic input on the future of the country would generate uncertainty for the economy and that Labour would only hold such a vote if there were a further transfer of power: something which happens weekly in Brussels and Strasbourg without requiring Treaty change due to a clause in the Lisbon Agreement.
And it was more bad news for beleaguered leader who faced embarrassment as former Labour cabinet minister Lord Mandelson predicted that Ed Miliband would not win an overall majority at the general election.
The former EU Commissioner, who played a pivotal role in transforming the fortunes of the Labour party in the 1990s, said there would almost certainly be another “stalemate hung Parliament.”
Speaking at a conference in London, he said, “The two big parties in British politics have never polled a smaller share of the total vote as they are doing now. Why? Because people basically are unhappy with what’s on offer.
“They are therefore shopping around in politics in a way the large parties are ill-equipped to deal with, which will almost certainly deliver us a stalemate hung Parliament in two months’ time.”
Mr Miliband was taunted by the Prime Minister at Question Time yesterday, saying that the party had given up hope of governing alone and would need an alliance with the hard left SNP to hold power.
“They’re not trying to win, they are just trying to crawl through the gates of Downing Street on the coat tails of the SNP… in alliance with people who want to break up the future of our country,” Mr Cameron said.
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