Michael Sercan Daventry
June 22, 2016•Update: June 25, 2016
LONDON
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has warned of the irreversibility of a Brexit on the final day of campaigning ahead of Britain’s EU membership referendum.
His comments came as pro-Brexit campaigners made a final call to voters to “believe in our country”, as opinion polls suggested the outcome was too close to call.
Cameron told BBC radio on Wednesday morning: “You can't jump out the airplane and then clamber back through the cockpit hatch.”
He said the U.K. had “the best of both worlds” by remaining in the EU: “We're in that single market, we're driving that single market, there are lots of things that Britain can help Europe to achieve - whether it's tackling terrorism or signing better trade deals in the future - but we have our own special status protected.
“I'm a deeply patriotic person about this country. We have not been invaded for 1,000 years, we've got institutions that have served us well. I don't want to give that up to some sort of United Europe and that's not what we're going to do.”
Boris Johnson, the former London mayor and prominent campaigner for the U.K. to leave the EU, began his day in an east London fish market.
“It's time to have a totally new relationship with our friends and partners across the Channel. It's time to speak up for democracy, and hundreds of millions of people around Europe agree with us. It's time to break away from the failing and dysfunctional EU system,” he told the BBC.
The final opinion polls published before Thursday’s referendum suggested the result would be extremely tight. An average published by What UK Thinks, a polling analysis website, gave Remain 51 percent and Leave 49 percent.
Analysts have predicted turnout could exceed 80 percent – a level not seen in a U.K. national election or referendum for more than half a century.
