Obama embroiled in Britain's EU membership debate

LONDON

U.S. President Barack Obama was thrust into Britain’s EU membership debate Monday as politicians argued over whether he should intervene publicly.

Obama will reportedly use a visit to the U.K. next month to argue for Britain’s continued membership of the 28-country bloc.

However, London Mayor Boris Johnson, a leading figure in the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, said it would be “a piece of outrageous and exorbitant hypocrisy” for Obama to make comments on Britain’s June referendum on EU membership.

In response, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond defended the right of foreign leaders to speak on the referendum.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Johnson said: “Can you imagine the Americans submitting their democracy to the kind of regime that we have in the EU?”

Hammond, who supports Prime Minister David Cameron’s argument to remain in the EU, called on world leaders to express their positions on the EU.

“Let's just hear how much they actually value Britain's membership of the EU, just so the British people are properly informed in this debate and are not deceived by some of the suggestions they are hearing about the welcome that might be awaiting us if we left the EU from our English-speaking partners around the world,” he said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

According to The Independent on Sunday newspaper, Obama will visit Britain in late April, around two months before the June 23 referendum.