US President Barack Obama has been accused of doing Downing Street’s bidding – after he said the UK would be at “the back of the queue” for American trade deals if it left the EU.
Obama was criticised by pro-Brexit campaigners after he warned of the consequences of the UK leaving the EU.
UKIP’s Nigel Farage said Obama was “talking down Britain”, while Tory Liam Fox said his views were “irrelevant”.
Obama, on a three-day UK visit, will meet Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn later.
His intervention came on his first full day in the UK and comes just weeks ahead of the 23 June in-out referendum.
Speaking at a joint news conference with Prime Minister David Cameron, Obama said the US “wants Britain’s influence to grow – including within Europe”.
“The UK is at its best when it’s helping to lead a strong European Union. It leverages UK power to be part of the EU.
“I don’t think the EU moderates British influence in the world, it magnifies it.”
However, his intervention in the referendum debate provoked a backlash from Leave campaigners, reports the BBC.
Farage accused the US president of doing Cameron’s “bidding” and talking down Britain, adding: “I think that’s shameful.”
Tory former defence secretary Liam Fox said Obama would be leaving the White House in November, and therefore his comments were “largely irrelevant”.
He told ‘BBC’s Newsnight’: “We heard ‘you are our best friend, we have a special relationship, and you will get a punishment beating if you leave the EU’.
“This is very much the Downing Street refrain.”
Conservative MP Dominic Raab labelled Obama a “lame-duck American president doing an old British friend a political favour”.
