Debate over British EU exit heats up

The "In" campaign - full title "Britain Stronger in Europe" - was seemingly given an early boost by a warning from the International Monetary Fund of "severe regional and global damage" if Britain voted to leave. The threat is real, argues Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform, a broadly pro-European analyst group.

"We could see the EU fracturing and becoming a much less influential actor globally," he said. “If it does so, it will weaken one of the West’s two big centers of power, the EU and the United States. So it will make it harder to address global problems, it will leave the US more isolated than it currently is, and it will embolden other centers of power in the world, be it Russia, China.”