50 Tories plot Britain's exit from EU

More than 50 Conservative MPs are plotting to lead the campaign to leave the European Union, in a move that will electrify the battle for Britain’s future place in the world.

A new group, Conservatives for Britain (CfB), will formally support David Cameron’s efforts to negotiate better terms for Britain’s membership of the EU in talks with other European leaders.

But the MPs behind the initiative warn that unless the Prime Minister achieves truly radical changes, they will urge the British public to vote to withdraw from the EU in the referendum that is due to be held by 2017.

The group has already signed up more than 50 MPs, including former Cabinet ministers Owen Paterson and John Redwood, organisers say. They expect numbers to rise to 100, or more, including several current ministers, within days.

Members of the European Parliament are also joining CfB and local councillors and party activists across the UK will be urged to register their support as the campaign for Britain's exit from the EU grows.

^{The Prime Minister is negotiating a new deal for Britain in the EU}

The group's name has conscious echoes of Business for Britain, the eurosceptic business organisation, and raises the prospect of a single "out" organisation taking shape under the banner "For Britain" when the referendum battle begins.

Steve Baker, the Tory MP who is chairing the body at Westminster, says his members will monitor the Prime Minister’s progress in securing a radical new deal.

But he warns that unless Britain regains sovereignty over its own laws and power to trade freely, the formal “out” campaign that his colleagues are preparing will be launched.

Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Baker says: “We wish David Cameron every success but, unless senior EU officials awake to the possibility that one of the EU’s largest members is serious about a fundamental change in our relationship, our recommendation to British voters seems likely to be exit.”

The dramatic development demonstrates that large numbers of Eurosceptic Tories are no longer prepared to wait before setting out their case against Britain’s membership of the EU as it stands.

It highlights their determination to ensure that a highly-organised“out” campaign is up and running well before Mr Cameron concludes his negotiations with other EU leaders. The Tory moves comes as:

:: Nick Timothy, who was chief of staff to the Home Secretary until last month, warns Mr Cameron will fail to meet his target to cut immigration unless European rules on "free movement" of people are overhauled. Writing for The Telegraph, he says the Prime Minister has “an enormous job” on his hands to reduce net migration to the “tens of thousands” per year.

:: Owen Paterson, the former Environment Secretary, urged Mr Cameron to allow his ministers to campaign to leave the EU, amid suggestions that as many as nine senior ministers privately support a British exit.

:: Nigel Farage, the UK Independence Party leader said the“out” campaign must take shape now and argued that his party could "fight the ground game" in the battle to free Britain from Brussels' control.

Mr Cameron has opened talks with other European leaders and is expected to set out more detailed demands for a new deal at a summit in Brussels later this month.

The new terms of Britain's membership will be put to the public in a referendum before the end of 2017, asking whether Britain should remain in the EU, and the Bill paving the way for the vote will be debated in the Commons on Tuesday.

A poll by ICM put the “Yes” vote on 59 per cent, with 41 per cent saying they would vote “No” to continued EU membership.

The Prime Minister has said he wants restrictions on Europeans’ eligibility for British benefits, a guarantee that the UK will never join the euro, and an end to the EU drive towards “ever closer union”.

^{David Cameron says Britain must never join the euro}

Some EU countries including Poland have already dismissed these relatively low-key demands.

But the founders of Conservatives for Britain - Mr Baker and David Campbell Bannerman, an MEP – warn that the modest plans outlined by Mr Cameron so far would not be good enough to win their colleagues’support.

In a document setting out its position, CfB warns that the UK’s current relationship with the EU is “untenable”.

CfB members support the Tory party’s policy of renegotiation but “take an optimistic, globalist view of the UK’s future” and “will discuss how to prepare for a possible ‘out’ campaign”, it said.

In his article, Mr Baker, the MP for Wycombe, says Britain’s relations with Europe must be radically stripped back to a deal based on trade in order to satisfy his colleagues.

"I have been struck by the dozens of Tory MPs who would vote to quit the EU now and who will not settle for anything less than fundamental change,” he says.

Sovereignty over national laws must be returned to Parliament from Brussels, while Britain should seize back control over immigration, he adds.

But these are both ideas that the Prime Minister has been deeply reluctant to endorse, describing the concept of a veto for Parliament over EU laws as "impossible".

MPs who have signed up to CfB have met twice in Parliament already since the election while MEPs in the group will hold their first meeting to discuss campaign tactics in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

Members so far who are willing to be named publicly include Mr Paterson; the former Shadow Cabinet Minister, Bernard Jenkin; Mr Redwood, the former Welsh Secretary; and the Conservative MPs Adam Afriyie and Julian Lewis. Newly elected Tory MPs who have joined CfB include James Cleverly, Tom Pursglove, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, and Craig Mackinlay, who defeated Mr Farage in South Thanet at the election.

Mr Campbell Bannerman, Co-Chair of CfB, said: “If the EU is not willing to return significant powers to our shores, then Britain should leave. We will set out what we believe needs to be achieved in the renegotiation process if Britain is to remain a member of the EU.

“Restricting freedom of movement of EU citizens and making the UK parliament sovereign over EU law are likely to feature heavily on our agenda.”

The Prime Minister has ordered all his government ministers to support his negotiations and hinted heavily that they will also be required to campaign for an “in” vote at the referendum.

However, Owen Paterson, who served in Mr Cameron’s Cabinet between 2010 and 2014, urged Eurosceptic ministers to be ready to resign in order to campaign for what they believed.

“We all hope that the deal is satisfactory and will be widely accepted but if there are individuals in the Cabinet who are not happy with the deal, they should be allowed to campaign,”he said.

“If that is not allowed, these people -if they have got any character about them at all and are interested in the future of their country - should stand down and campaign according to their conscience."

Mr Paterson said there was "broad support for wishing the Prime Minister well with his negotiations” among Tory MPs.

He said there would be "very widespread support" for the aims of the CfB group.

“I invited all the new intake [of Tory MPs] to my office for a drink on the night of the Queen’s Speech [May 27]. About 50 of them turned up and there is strong support for the aims set out by this group," he said.

Mr Cameron has been "very canny not giving the details of his negotiation… But for people like me, and I think those in this group, who would like to see us get back to a market relationship and to re-establish our ability to make our own rules and laws in our own parliament, we should be prepared for the referendum,” Mr Paterson added.

The Prime Minister is coming under pressure from his own ministers to put reforming EU migration rules at the top of his list of demands.

One Cabinet source said: “We want something on freedom of movement. That is going to have to be in there. It is a fundamental point that we have to have control of our borders.”

Last week it emerged that Mr Cameron had personally taken charge of the government’s immigration policies, and would be chairing a new Cabinet “task force” on migration.

However, writing in The Telegraph, Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former chief of staff, said Mr Cameron would fail in his goal to cut migration unless he changed EU rules.

“When the Prime Minister’s immigration task force meets for the first time, it will discover it has an enormous job on its hands,” Mr Timothy said.