Callum McCaig today hailed the European Union a “beacon of hope in a turbulent world”, as he urged voters not to turn their backs on it.
The Aberdeen South MP instead called on people to “embrace and celebrate” the institution.
Writing in the Press and Journal, he also said the recent refugee crisis had highlighted freedoms the UK enjoys which others will “risk their lives for”.
And he pointed to the benefits to the Granite City of remaining in the EU, including funding for the drive to diversity into renewable energy technologies, social protections and access to the single market.
His remarks came as David Cameron and former trade union leader Sir Brendan Barber teamed up to warn workers they would be hit by a “triple threat” to jobs, wages and prices in shops if the UK voted to leave the EU.
The PM and ex-Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary accepted they were unlikely allies.
But answering questions at an engine factory in Peterborough, Mr Cameron said: “We both think this issue about Britain and Europe is so important that we put aside our own disagreements, put aside party political arguments to say Britain should stay in a united EU.”
He also spoke about the importance of Europe in moving on from the two world wars.
“For all its imperfections, we shouldn’t lose that idealism that we’ve found a way in Europe of settling our differences through discussion and negotiation rather than all the things that have happened in the past,” Mr Cameron told workers.
In the Commons yesterday, Tory MP Bernard Jenkin likened the UK Government’s concessions to the Trade Union Bill earlier in the week to the “cash for questions” scandal.
The leading Eurosceptic claimed Downing Street had instructed a climbdown on attempts to force all trade union members to have to opt into paying a political levy in order to secure union representatives’ support for Remain.
The opt-in will now only apply to new union members and not existing members, as originally planned.
Number 10 insisted the legislation and EU referendum were “separate issues”, however.
Meanwhile, Eurosceptic economists said yesterday the UK could grow an extra 4% in a decade if it left the EU.
The Economists for Brexit – a group of eight senior figures – calculated that prices would be 8% lower, fewer people would be out of work and investment would grow once the UK was freed from the constraints of Brussels.
