Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr has praised Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, saying that he hopes the United Kingdom can move forward alone.

Starr, who lives in Los Angeles, said that he was in favor of the European Union when it first started.

“I was a huge fan when (the EU) started. I’ve lived all over Europe so I thought ‘how great’. But it never really got together, I didn’t think. Maybe in a business way it got together but everyone kept their own flags – it didn’t really turn into a love fest,” he said, according to British media outlets.

The musician’s statements come after a total of 51.9 percent of Britons voted on June 23 to leave the EU in a referendum with the participation of 72.1 percent of voters. EFE

As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, Ringo Starr’s opinion is similar to that to presumptive United States Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

While visiting Scotland the day after the Brexit vote, Trump said the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union was a “great thing” and that the British people had “taken back their country.” He was welcomed at the airport by mariachi band “Juan Direction” as part of a clever publicity stunt by Irish bookmaker Paddy Power.

Trump promised to “strengthen ties” with a “free and independent” United Kingdom if he takes the White House in November.

In a message published on his Facebook profile, he praised the victory of the “Leave” campaign in the UK’s EU referendum on Thursday in which he said Britons exercised the “sacred right of all free people,” adding that the British people “had declared their independence from the EU and have voted to retake control of their own politics, borders and economy.”

Trump, whose mother was born in Scotland, has several business interests in the country including another golf-course in Aberdeenshire.

Scotland largely voted to remain in the EU.

London, Jul 3 (EFE).