David Cameron on Saturday warned that pledges to raise state pensions and ring-fence spending for the National Health Service (NHS) might have to be ditched in a brutal new phase of austerity if the country votes to leave the EU.
With Downing Street increasingly anxious about levels of support for leaving the EU, particularly among Labour voters, the prime minister said people need to focus on the “cold reality” of what Brexit would mean to their lives.
In an exclusive interview with the Observer, with only 12 days to go until the crucial referendum, Cameron said he was not trying to scare people, but was focusing on the stark reality of what life would be like outside the world’s largest trading market.
He says that a “black hole” in public finances — predicted by Britain’s Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) by 2020 in the event of Brexit — would threaten the very services that people cherish and rely on most.
Ring-fenced spending on the NHS, the “triple lock” that guarantees annual increases in state pensions; free TV licenses and bus passes for pensioners; and defense spending would all be under threat, he said.
Cameron said he fully intends to honor a commitment to increase NHS spending by ￡10 billion (US$14.26 billion) by 2020, but added: “If we leave the EU, independent and respected experts like the IFS and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research say that by 2020 we will face a black hole in our public finances of up to ￡40 billion.”
“In those circumstances, future funding for the NHS could be at risk. Our ability to ring-fence and protect spending on health could be at risk, too. This is the cold reality of leaving the EU — that’s why doctors, nurses and the boss of the NHS all say we will be stronger, safer and better off in the EU,” Cameron added.
Annual state pension increases are currently guaranteed by the “triple lock,” which ensures they rise in line with whichever is higher: earnings, inflation or 2.5 percent. These would also be threatened.
“You would have to start cutting things that people really value, whether it is the money going to the NHS or whether it is support for our pension system, and that could mean reviewing the triple lock,” Cameron said.
Senior sources in the “Remain” camp said Cameron’s remarks were part of a deliberate attempt to “nail the lie” being spread by the “Leave” campaign, headed by British lawmakers Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, that quitting the EU would free up money that could be spent on public services.
Remain says that the impact on economic activity and, as a result, tax receipts into the Exchequer would lead to a massive shock and new public spending cuts.
Cameron made clear that in the coming week, leading Labour figures — including leader Jeremy Corbyn, London Mayor Sadiq Kahn, former prime minister Gordon Brown and former home secretary Alan Johnson — would be given center stage in the Remain campaign, so that they could appeal directly to Labour party followers.
He called on them not to use the June 23 vote as a chance to punish him or the Tories, but to support what is a huge coalition from the left and right that is backing continued EU membership.
The vote was “more important than a general election,” Cameron said.
“They are voting for a generation, for a lifetime. It is about their children and their grandchildren. What I would say to them [Labour voters] is, look at the scale, look at the range behind Stronger In. You have got the trade unions, the Greens, the Lib Dems, the Labour Party, a Conservative government. It is a very, very big coalition,” he added.
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