Brits to Obama: ’Sticking Your Hooter in’ British Politics is Unwelcome

Local Editor

Not everyone in Britain, it is safe to say, welcomes the intervention of an American president in what's viewed as the internal politics of the United Kingdom.

In a visit to London, President Barack Obama argued in an opinion piece that Britons should vote to stay in the European Union rather than pull out. The UK had scheduled a nationwide vote on the issue for June 23.

And some Britons had reacted to Obama's advice in what they see as an internal British matter in a way that echoes the words of the American author Ring Lardner: " 'Shut up,' he explained."

London Mayor Boris Johnson, writing for The Sun newspaper, implied that Obama was a hypocrite because Washington would never surrender so much power to Brussels, the EU's de-facto capital.

And he suggested that "the part-Kenyan President" had an "ancestral dislike of the British empire."

Neither was everyone on social media impressed with what they viewed as Obama's butinsky attitude.

Brexit is shorthand for the British exit from the EU.

In his piece published in The Daily Telegraph, Obama evokes the Americans who died defending Britain in World War II and argues that Britain's decision on whether to stay in the EU affects the rest of the world.

Obama argues that Britain will amplify rather than diminish its global influence by remaining a member of the EU.

Not everyone resented his advice. People interviewed in London by CNN on Friday generally said the President was entitled to state his viewpoint.

"He's welcome to an opinion," one man said. "But I think if you look closer to your own borders you've got bigger things to worry about than us staying in Europe -- you've got a few crazies running for your presidency. So we'll deal with our problems, you deal with yours, and we'll thrash it out in the end."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team