Britain and the EU (29)

  Britain moves closer to EU referendum law

By Danny Kemp (AFP) –     17 May 2013    

 David Cameron speaks in Brussels on October 29, 2010 (AFP/File, John Thys)

LONDON — Britain moved closer to a referendum on Europe after a eurosceptic lawmaker said on Thursday that he would put forward legislation backed by Prime Minister David Cameron guaranteeing a vote by 2017.

Cameron ordered all Conservative lawmakers to give their full backing to the bill, which was rushed out earlier this week in a bid to satisfy the increasingly rebellious eurosceptic wing of the party.

Conservative MP James Wharton confirmed he would table the centre-right party's EU referendum bill in parliament after he came top of a ballot to see which lawmakers may put forward so-called private members' legislation.

Parliament will now formally debate the draft bill, probably in early July, although under the complex British parliamentary system there is no guarantee that it will reach a vote or become law.

In January Cameron vowed to renegotiate Britain's troubled relationship with the European Union and then hold an in-out referendum by the end of 2017, provided that he wins the next general election in 2015.

But disgruntled Conservative eurosceptics want him to enshrine that promise in law before the election to stop any backtracking, as well as to head off the rise of the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP).

"It is about time that this issue was tackled head-on by parliament," Wharton told the BBC.

Learn why Britain must pull out of the European Union from the Bible