BRACKNELL MP Dr Phillip Lee has revealed he is backing the UK to remain in the EU, just under two weeks before voters take to the polls.

Dr Lee voiced his support for the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign in front of influential political, business, diplomatic and media figures at the Frontline Club in London last night, only 14 days before the referendum on June 23. 

For months, Dr Lee has remained tight-lipped on his stance on the UK's EU membership, deciding not to declare as a way of 'facilitating debate' for his constituents.

Addressing the crowd, he touched upon his belief that no country in the world can 'tackle future migration pressures, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, climate change and avert possible future financial crises' on its own.

He said: "In an uncertain and ever-more perilous world, we must not take this peace, cooperation and friendship for granted. We must not turn away for the sake of an illusion of sovereignty that is obsolete in our interdependent world. We must not weaken ourselves and Europe, dangerously and perhaps irrevocably. We cannot put our destiny and that of Europe at risk by voting to Leave. We owe it to future generations, the lives of our children and their children, to remain in the European Union.

"It is little wonder with such progress that people are driven to flee places where life is hard, to come to our great country. We will only ease pressures that drive migration by spreading the prosperity and security that we enjoy. By strengthening and not weakening the global order. By enhancing the globalised economic growth that depends on that order. By promoting the values of peace, democracy and human rights that underpin it, thereby delivering the security, stability and prosperity the world needs. And everything that flows from that for the good of Britain – our health, our welfare, and our defence."

He added that despite its flaws, the EU has created 'the foundations' for the UK's prosperity and that a vote to remain 'must be a vote to guide and strengthen Europe.' 

He said: "And we must recognise that the EU did not cause the problems we face. It did not make our country a second-order power. Leaving is not a silver bullet that will solve everything we have got wrong. The opposite."

Criticising the Vote Leave campaign's claim that EU membership costs the UK £350million a week, he said the UK contributes around one and a half percent of annual public expenditure - 'or what it costs to the run the NHS for around a month'. 

He added that leaving the EU would be an 'act of strategic vandalism at the worst possible time' for the UK's economy and that it will be the largest in Europe by 2030. 

To read Dr Lee's full speech visit www.phillip-lee.com/uncategorized/dr-phillip-lee-mp-announces-support-for-the-uk-to-remain-a-member-of-the-european-union/