LONDON, Dec 10 (AFP) - Britain's eurosceptic press on Saturday hailed David Cameron's decision to veto a new EU treaty to tackle the eurozone debt crisis, although a few commentators warned London was now dangerously isolated.
“The Day He Put Britain First” cheered the mass-selling Daily Mail, after the British prime minister blocked Franco-German attempts to enshrine new budget rules into a modified EU treaty during an all-night summit in Brussels.
“Mr Cameron's courage and leadership yesterday show that, while desiring a strong relationship with our EU partners, Britain can still control her own destiny,” it said in an editorial.
Warning that “the battle is only just beginning”, the paper said: “There is now a wonderful opportunity for Britain gradually to loosen itself from the shackles of a statist, over-regulated, anti-democratic, corrupt EU.”The Daily Express, which has long been campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union, was also jubilant, splashing with: “Britain Close to EU Exit”.
Top-selling tabloid The Sun joined the approval, putting a picture of Cameron dressed as wartime leader Winston Churchill on its front page with the defiant headline “Up Eurs -- Bulldog PM sticks up for Britain”.
The Daily Telegraph, the broadsheet close to Cameron's Conservative party, said the prime minister “stands as lone man of Europe” -- and made clear that this was a good thing.
Its editorial was pessimistic about the impact the measures agreed in Brussels would have on the eurozone debt crisis, but said they had “at long last” forced Britain to begin the process of redefining its ties with the EU.
“The European strategy Britain has pursued for decades has run out of road,” the newspaper said, adding: “The core of Europe has embarked on a course we cannot reasonably follow.”
The Times took a similar line, warning that Cameron had “no option” but to veto a treaty containing measures that ceded so much control to Brussels and which did not look likely to solve the debt crisis in any case.
“The British veto did not kill off a serious attempt to fix the euro crisis. It merely impeded a muddled and half-hearted response to a problem that its members seem incapable of realising is, in fact, existential,” the paper said.
It urged Cameron to now set out his vision of how Britain could work with the EU, adding: “This is the end of one era and the beginning of another, which now awaits more definition from David Cameron.”
However, the left-wing press warned that in refusing to sign up to a “new fiscal compact”, apparently alone among the 27 EU states, Cameron had left Britain isolated and weak. |
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