Cameron "in-out" referendum IF HE WINS THE NEXT ELECTION!!!!!!

Cameron: I'll hold an in-out vote on Europe


David Cameron will today offer the British public the first “in-out referendum” on membership of the European Union in more than 40 years.








Mr Cameron will repeatedly stress his desire that Britain remain a member of the EU Photo: Eddie Mulholland for the Telegraph






By Robert Winnett, Political Editor

10:51PM GMT 22 Jan 2013

1044 Comments




The Prime Minister will warn that democratic consent for the EU is currently “wafer thin” and that “it is time for the British people to have their say”.


The pledge to hold a referendum if the Conservatives win the next election will be made in Mr Cameron’s long-awaited speech on Europe, which is finally due to be delivered this morning.


He will stress that, for the sake of “generations to come”, Britain should remain a member of the EU, but that the terms of the relationship should be renegotiated. Mr Cameron is not expected to set out which powers he believes should be repatriated from Brussels.


“The next Conservative manifesto in 2015 will ask for a mandate from the British people for a Conservative government to negotiate a new settlement with our European partners in the next parliament,” the Prime Minister will say.


“And when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in-out referendum.



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“Legislation will be drafted before the next election. And if a Conservative government is elected we will introduce the enabling legislation immediately and pass it by the end of that year. And we will complete this negotiation and hold this referendum within the first half of the next parliament.

“It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time to settle this European question in British politics.”

Mr Cameron will repeatedly stress his desire that Britain remain a member of the EU but that the organisation needs to become more “flexible and adaptable”.

“I believe we can deliver a more flexible, adaptable and open European Union in which the interests and ambitions of all its members can be met,” he will say.

“I believe something very deeply. That Britain’s national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union. And that such a European Union is best with Britain in it.

“I will not rest until this debate is won. For the future of my country. For the success of the European Union. And for the prosperity of our peoples for generations to come.”

Today’s speech, which was due to be delivered last Friday but was cancelled amid the hostage crisis in Algeria, marks a gamble for Mr Cameron. Some in his party want an immediate referendum, and several Cabinet ministers privately believe that Britain should consider leaving the EU. It is not clear whether the prospect of a future referendum, in which Mr Cameron will campaign for an “in” vote, will satisfy these demands.

The Prime Minister is also facing criticism from the Liberal Democrats and some world leaders, who warn that promising a referendum risks increasing uncertainty when the country is struggling to recover from the financial crisis.

In today’s speech, to be delivered in the City of London, Mr Cameron will attempt to address both sets of concern by arguing that the public’s opinions must be sought because disillusionment with the EU is at an “all-time high”. Among the reasons for this, he says, are that people feel that the EU is “heading in a direction that they never signed up to” and a resentment over “interference in our national life”. “The result is that democratic consent for the EU in Britain is now wafer thin,” he says.

He rules out an immediate referendum because the EU is likely to be “transformed perhaps beyond recognition” by the measures needed to save the eurozone, after which Britain will need to renegotiate its membership.

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said yesterday that Mr Cameron’s speech would “define him as a weak Prime Minister, being driven by his party, not by the national economic interest”.

Peter Wilding, Director of the Centre for British Influence, the umbrella campaign to keep Britain in Europe, said: "We support the Prime Minister's call for a more 'flexible adaptable and open Europe' and we will need positive partnership to achieve that, not threatened exit.

Whoopee........there we have it....in or out......at last..



And all we have to do......vote him in 2015.....there we go, simple.....do we believe him.....NOT ON YOUR BLOODY LIFE.


2015 the people vote for cameron to remain prime minister.


2019 the people vote for OUT off the EU.......



Do you really thing BIG businesses are going to vote to get out off the EU.....off course not.....big business for them dealing with the countries within the EU....don't matter about the man on the street , we don't count....foreign workers accepting below minimum wage, these businesses rely on that......

Kitti, the EU is a shambles and even if they paper over the cracks this time the EU Parliament is corrupt so another Country will be on the brink and there is a limit to the bailouts the ECB can do.

This was a golden time for Cameron to demand changes but Britain is not popular in the EU and has no sway , yet is the 3rd largest contributor to EU Funds. The latest Agricultural scandal should have been enough for Cameron to hold a referendum .

British trade is not very high in Europe anyway and I think European Countries would still trade, Britain and Germany have a very good trading relationship.

I think Cameron has sealed his fate by fudging the issue , has no idea of the number of Rumanians who have come to Britain for the soft touch and we can't stop them .

Tory ministers may vote against staying in EU if Cameron fails to claw back powers


Boris Johnson and other senior Conservatives are warning David Cameron that they may not vote to keep Britain in the European Union unless there is a “significant” repatriation of powers from Brussels.








Mr Cameron at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Photo: AP






By Robert Winnett, Political Editor

8:00PM GMT 24 Jan 2013




More than 100 Conservative MPs, including several members of the Cabinet, are prepared to vote “out” in a referendum unless Britain’s relationship with the EU is fundamentally changed after the next election.


Earlier this week, the Prime Minister pledged to renegotiate Britain’s membership and then allow the public a referendum on the revised deal – if he is re-elected in 2015.


Yesterday during a series of interviews at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Cameron repeatedly stressed that he wanted Britain to remain a member of the EU.


However, he has not yet set out which powers he would like to repatriate to Britain – and the only specific example he has stated is restrictions on the working hours of doctors.


Although his landmark Europe speech was warmly welcomed by most Conservatives, senior figures in the party have indicated that they will seek a British exit from the EU if significant powers are not returned.



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Yesterday, Mr Johnson, the London mayor, asked if he would vote to keep Britain in the EU, said: “I can’t say now, but my overwhelming instinct would be that we can get sufficient changes, reforms and improvements to the treaty to make it sensible for most people in my country to vote to stay in the single market.”

Sajid Javid, a Treasury minister, said in an interview with the Spectator magazine: “I would personally consider our options outside the EU [without renegotiation].”

These views are understood to be shared by Cabinet ministers including Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling and Owen Paterson.

One minister said: “There is no division in the Cabinet at all over the position, but there is an expectation among a large group of the party that there will have to be a major renegotiation for ongoing membership to be supported. But, this is now a settled issued until after the election.”

Last night, in an interview with CNN, the Prime Minister said that he would not issue “demands” and then “storm off” if they were not met during negotiations over Britain’s EU membership.

Mr Cameron said: “What we’ve said is we think there’s a whole range of areas where the European Union has legislated too often and gone too far, covering areas like social and employment legislation, environmental legislation…I mean, just one example, the hours that hospital doctors work in Britain is, you know, dictated sometimes by rules [from] Brussels. That really isn't necessary in an open, flexible, competitive Europe.”

He added: “We're not putting a list of demands on the table and saying we'll storm off if we don't get them. What we're saying is we should in Europe have changes that will benefit all of the countries of the European Union, but which at the same time will, I think, make Britain more comfortable with her place in the European Union.”

The Prime Minister spent much of yesterday at Davos lobbying other European leaders to support his position. He met with Angela Merkel after the German chancellor said she would consider Britain’s demands for renegotiation.

“They touched briefly on the Prime Minister’s EU speech,” a Downing Street spokesman said.

Mr Cameron also had short meetings with Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Danish prime minister, Mark Rutte, the prime minister of the Netherlands, Enda Kenny, Ireland’s prime minister and Mario Monti, the Italian prime minister.

Most European leaders stressed that they wished for Britain to remain an active member of the EU.

Last night, Nick Clegg, the deputy Prime Minister, suggested that although he opposed Mr Cameron’s position he may support a future referendum on EU membership.

However, in an interview with The House magazine, he said he was “none the wiser” about what the “great re-negotiation means” as the Coalition was already committed to changing working time laws.

The Liberal Democrat leader said: “It was a well-crafted speech and obviously very well delivered.

“My own view is that it will be a tactical victory today for a strategic mistake tomorrow. Because actually the whole approach hinges not so much on the referendum, but on prior to that, reinventing and resettling the terms of Britain's membership in the European Union - but I've no idea how.

“Changing the working time directive, even I agree with that, we put that in the coalition agreement; a change on fisheries, fine. But in that case, what on earth is all the fuss about? Because anyone would agree to that.”

But, he added: “Or it means a complete wholesale rewriting of the whole terms of the membership of Britain of the European Union within 18 months flat, which I think is wholly implausible.”

Cabinet clash after Ken Clarke says Government will hand back laws to the EU


A Cabinet row erupted today after Ken Clarke claimed the Government is to hand back 30 criminal justice laws to the European Union.








Ken Clarke has disclosed that the Government is signing back up to 30 EU justice laws Photo: Eddie Mulholland





By Peter Dominiczak and Bruno Waterfield

2:04PM GMT 31 Jan 2013

97 Comments




Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Mr Clarke, the Minister without Portfolio, announced that ministers will “opt back into” 30 EU measures that will impact the UK’s justice system.


However Mr Clarke was rebuked by a senior Liberal Democrat source just hours later, who accused the minister of “getting ahead of himself” over the issue.


Theresa May, the Home Secretary, last year revealed plans to opt out of more than 130 EU rules related to law and order, including extradition and the European Arrest Warrant.


She said MPs would get the right to vote on whether to claw back all the powers and that ministers could later decide to opt back into some of the rules if they are in the national interest.


Mr Clarke, who is fronting a campaign to argue for Britain to stay in the EU, said that ministers have now agreed to sign up to 30 “essential” justice laws.



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“We’ve actually just exercised a right that Tony Blair got after Lisbon to opt out of a whole lot of justice and criminal regulations – we’re going to opt back in to about 30 of them which are essential but… well over 100 can be dropped,” Mr Clarke told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

EU diplomats and officials and officials have confirmed that Britain is seeking a number of back door “opt-ins” by asking for minor amendments to existing EU legislation.

Any European policing and crime directives, such as the controversial EU arrest warrant, that are amended after 2010 automatically drop out of the bloc opt-out of 130 measures with an automatic opt-in choice for Britain.

Such deals have already been done for Europol in the area of police cooperation and Eurojust, a body that coordinates the work of national prosecutors at the EU level.

“Britain’s strategy is to ask for light amendments to directive to give an opt-in it wants to exercise. Europol and Eurojust are there. Britain is asking for some change to the arrest warrant to get an opt-in,” said an EU official.

An EU court ruling earlier this week has limited the Government’s room for manoeuvre after European judges ruled out challenge to extradition under EU arrest warrants on human rights or “proportionality” grounds.

A senior EU justice official confirmed that Britain was urgently pursuing back room deals on areas such as the arrest warrant.

“Britain is negotiating in order to have opt-ins lined up instantly, as soon as the bloc opt-out kicks in. Given the public announcements that it wanted to opt-out this strategy has raised eyebrows and accusation that the government wants to have its cake and eat it,” said the official.

The Home Office and senior Lib Dems both insisted that “no decision” has yet been taken on the issue.

“There’s a lot of common ground between Ken Clarke and the Liberal Democrats on Europe but he’s getting ahead of himself on [this] issue,” a Lib Dem source said.

“No decision has been taken about how many measures the UK will opt back in to.

“The question of whether to exercise the mass opt-out remains under discussion in government.

“The Liberal Democrats, the police and any many others believe that many of these measures are essential to the continued safety and security of the British public from terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration.”

A Labour spokesman told the Telegraph that Mr Clarke “knows it was a total disaster to opt out [of EU laws] and is trying to save face”.

“It’s not going to be easy to opt back in to the 30 they want and the other 100 didn’t largely affect us.

“It was just an attempt to placate Tory backbenchers.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “No final decisions have been made. We have made a commitment to a vote in both Houses of Parliament before we take a final decision. That vote will take place in good time before 2014.”

Mr Clarke also told the programme that it is “inconceivable” that David Cameron would ever campaign for Britain to leave the EU, even if he is unable to repatriate any powers from Europe, Ken Clarke has said.

Mr Cameron this month said he would attempt to renegotiate Britain’s position in the EU and then offer voters an in-out referendum.

When asked what the Prime Minister would do if he was unable to repatriate powers from the EU prior to the referendum Mr Clarke said: “I don’t think he can conceivably start urging people to vote no after all he’s said about his reasons for being a member of the EU.

“The whole policy is designed to stop this permanent sort of battle about why we’re in Europe, and whether we should be in Europe and to improve our relationship with Europe itself. It does need to reform.”

Mr Clarke also said that “a lot of European leaders think change is necessary”.

However he admitted that the reaction to Mr Cameron’s referendum pledge has been “mixed”.

“What the Prime Minister set out was firstly a very strong case for being in the EU, like most responsible leaders of his generation and mine he believes that’s necessary,” Mr Clarke said.

“We can play a very positive and active role there. We’ve got to strengthen the things that matter to us. He set out the case for that, and then he set out the case for reforming and modernising the EU, which actually in my experience is agreed with by certainly a lot of Germans [and] Scandinavians.

"The reaction in other countries was mixed.”

Mr Clarke added that leaving the EU would be “catastrophic” for Britain.

“The idea that in the modern world that we somehow start abandoning the economic and political benefits that we can get, and that we the British stop being active and leading in our role there, is pretty unthinkable,” Mr Clarke said.

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What is it about these Politicians who wring their hands in dismay at the thought of Britain leaving the EU. Britain has many trading Partners around the World and by leaving will again be their own Masters. It is ridiculous that we are paid to leave fields fallow yet import sub standard Produce. What happened to Runner beans with real beans, granny Smith Apples, King Edward Potatoes and all the other excellent produce .? We need to govern ouselves and do as we see fit .