{Remain and Leave camps make their cases with economy and immigration high on the agenda before Thursday’s key vote.}<\/p>\n
Rival sides in Britain’s referendum on European Union membership clashed in a passionate debate to the roars of an audience of six thousand in a London concert arena.<\/p>\n
The debate on Tuesday evening, before Thursday’s referendum, was a final opportunity for the two camps to win over voters, with polls showing a razor-tight race less than 36 hours before a vote that will shape the future of Europe.<\/p>\n
Panellists locked horns over immigration, as the pro-EU London Mayor Sadiq Khan tore into his predecessor Boris Johnson, a key campaigner on the “Leave” side.<\/p>\n
“You’re telling lies and you’re scaring people,” Khan declared as he brandished a “Leave” leaflet warning that Turkey could join the EU.<\/p>\n
“That’s scaremongering, Boris, and you should be ashamed … you are using the ruse of Turkey to scare people to vote Leave,” Khan said to cheers from the audience.<\/p>\n
Johnson threw the criticism back at Khan, saying the pro-EU side had run a “Project Fear” by warning that leaving the 28-member bloc would damage Britain’s economy.<\/p>\n
“They say we have no choice but to bow down to Brussels. We say they are woefully underestimating this country and what it can do,” Johnson said.<\/p>\n
The Conservative MP promised Britain an “independence day” on Thursday if it voted to leave, bringing sections of the audience to their feet in prolonged applause.<\/p>\n
The prospect of Britain becoming the first state to defect from the EU in the bloc’s 60-year history has raised fears of a domino-effect collapse of the European project.<\/p>\n
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker earlier warned Britain against “an act of self-harm” he said would endanger everything Europeans had worked together to achieve.<\/p>\n
{{‘Very hostile’}}<\/p>\n
As the audience filed into the 12,500-seat Wembley Arena, which often hosts global music stars, they were serenaded by pro-Remain demonstrators singing “All You Need is Love”.<\/p>\n
Organisers Avaaz said the serenade was an attempt to counter the “fear and division” of the campaign.<\/p>\n
But the two sides remained deeply opposed and the audience split among equally vocal Remain and Leave crowds.<\/p>\n
“It felt like a football atmosphere … it felt very hostile. You could tell there was almost a mist of blood in the air,” said Michael Flaxington, 21, a student from Kent.<\/p>\n
Linda Mayne, 60, also from Kent, who is retired, said that the debate was well-argued on both sides but had not swayed her from her conviction to vote Leave.<\/p>\n
“I support Leave because I want the UK to have our own democracy back, to be able to control ourselves,” Mayne said.<\/p>\n
But 21-year-old student Anton Georgiou said the Leave side’s “take back control argument” was “an empty slogan with no detailed plan whatsoever”.<\/p>\n
As the debate concluded, the Daily Mail newspaper announced that it was endorsing Brexit.<\/p>\n
“Lies. Greedy elites. Or a great future outside a broken, dying Europe,” read its front page. “If you believe in Britain vote Leave.”<\/p>\n
Two newspapers, the Daily Express and The Sun, carried front-page stories reporting that Queen Elizabeth II was challenging guests to give her “three good reasons” why Britain should stay in the EU.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Buckingham Palace issued a rare complaint over a previous article by The Sun that claimed the queen favoured Brexit, a challenge to the monarch’s long-held position of political neutrality.<\/p>\n
The Times, which has backed Britain remaining in the EU, published a warning from hundreds of business leaders, including Virgin boss Richard Branson and US media mogul Michael Bloomberg, warning that Brexit could cause an “economic shock”.<\/p>\n
{{‘Nobody knows’}}<\/p>\n
“Nobody knows what is going to happen,” Prime Minister David Cameron told the Financial Times, insisting he did not regret calling the referendum.<\/p>\n
“I believe it will, one way or another, be decisive. Britain will not want to go through this again.”<\/p>\n
Actor Liam Neeson said that a vote for Brexit could be hugely damaging for his native Northern Ireland, potentially undermining the peace process that quelled decades of violence known as the Troubles.<\/p>\n
“A UK exit would have the worst ramifications for the island of Ireland,” Neeson said.<\/p>\n
The outcome looked deeply uncertain, as a poll by Survation gave “Remain” 45 percent and “Leave” 44 percent, with 11 percent undecided.<\/p>\n
Six major bookmakers showed the odds heavily pointing to a Remain vote, with the likelihood of Britain staying in put at around 80 percent. The latest surveys were mostly conducted after the brutal murder of Jo Cox, a 41-year-old Labour politician who campaigned to remain in the EU, who was shot and stabbed in her northern English constituency on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Her alleged killer, 52-year-old Thomas Mair, gave his name as “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain” at his first appearance in court after being charged with her murder.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, Cox’s widower Brendan said she had been “worried” the debate may have been “whipping up hatred”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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