Knee-jerk support of a stronger EU is becoming obsolete BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty ImagesBritish Prime Minister David Cameron promised in a January 2013 speech to let the British people vote in a referendum on whether to stay in the European Union or leave it.(MarketWatch) — The looming referendum in Britain on European Union membership is clearly not too high on the list of foreign-policy issues in a Washington preoccupied with Syria, Ukraine and China. President Barack Obama may have given a lot of thought to his remarks in a July interview with the BBC that the U.S. wants Britain to stay in the EU, or it may have been just a knee-jerk reaction to stick with longstanding U.S. policy.