Britain's The Sun newspaper endorses Brexit

[LONDON] Britain's most-read newspaper The Sun urged readers to vote to leave the European Union in an editorial splashed across its Tuesday front page in the colours of the Union Jack.

"BeLEAVE in Britain" read the headline in large letters.

"We are about to make the biggest political decision of our lives. The Sun today urges everyone to vote LEAVE."

Britain votes in ten days on whether to withdraw from the 28-member bloc, and polls indicate the referendum result may be tight.

The editorial argued the vote was a chance for Britain to reclaim its mantle as a great nation and control immigration into the country.

"Vote Leave, and we will reassert our sovereignty - embracing a future as a self-governing, powerful nation envied by all," it read.

Britain's future would be "far bleaker" within the EU and would be swallowed by a "relentlessly expanding German-dominated federal state", The Sun said.

"Our country has a glorious history. This is our chance to make Britain even greater, to recapture our democracy, to preserve the values and culture we are rightly proud of," it argued.

"We must set ourselves free from dictatorial Brussels," the newspaper urged, describing the EU as "increasingly greedy, wasteful, bullying".

It said the campaign to remain in the bloc had been "nasty" and "cynical" and accused it of trying to "terrify us all about life outside the EU".

The Britain Stronger In Europe campaign argues that the economy would suffer and Britain's place in the world would diminish outside the EU.

The Sun, part of the media empire of US-Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch, is credited with generally backing the winning side and famously claimed to have swung a general election in 1992.

Its headline "It's the Sun Wot Won It" claimed credit for the Conservative party's victory because of the newspaper's campaign against the Labour leader Neil Kinnock - and became something of a catchphrase.

AFP