Conservative backbencher Adam Afriyie, MP for Windsor, is set to table an amendment today (October 7) to the European Union (Referendum) Bill in a bid to force the Government to hold an early vote on whether the UK should leave the EU.
However, Prime Minister David Cameron has said that he will not let the amendment stand, although he has pledged to renegotiate the UK’s relationship with the EU before a referendum in 2017 on whether to stay or leave.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Politics programme, Mr Afriyie said there would be “ample time” to conduct this renegotiation by as early as next year.
He added that having a referendum in 2014 gives the party 12 months to renegotiate and also it kick-starts negotiations with the EU, who, he said, would need to “accommodate” British demands for reforms if they wish the UK to remain in the bloc.
The MP also predicted that large numbers of people would continue to vote for UKIP if a referendum were not carried out before the election, as, according to him, some 80 per cent of the population want one.
However, speaking on the same programme, Home Secretary Theresa May said that Mr Afriyie has “got it wrong” and added that the party needs to be negotiating a settlement with the European Union and then putting to the British people the Europe of the future, not the Europe of the past, before giving them the opportunity to say in or out.
Meanwhile, James Wharton, the Tory MP who brought the Bill as a private member’s bill, has warned that the amendment could “kill” it, as any amendment would make the its progress more difficult when it returns to the House of Commons for further debate on 8 November.