Only the Conservatives have a plan to deliver change in Europe

Conservatives for Britain is a group of Conservative Party members who:

  • Consider the UK’s present relationship with the EU to be untenable,
  • Take an optimistic, globalist view of the UK’s future,
  • Support the Party’s policy of renegotiation and referendum based on the Wharton Bill franchise and question,
  • Wish to explore what objectives the negotiations must achieve to ensure that they meet the PM’s objective, “to reform the EU and fundamentally change Britain’s relationship with it” (PM, Hansard, Col 1122, 23 March 2015), and
  • Will discuss how to prepare for a possible “out” campaign, to be activated if it is apparent that negotiations will not achieve the objectives.

After a number of meetings in Parliament this session, we launched today with my comment piece in The Sunday Telegraph:

Conservatives for Britain has been formed among Tory parliamentarians to discuss the criteria by which to judge the Government’s EU renegotiation. We are willing to consider how to prepare for an “out” campaign if, lamentably, the European Union establishment will not allow the UK a new relationship of trade and co-operation.

David Cameron has been spectacularly successful in Europe. No other Prime Minister has secured a cut in the European Union budget.

David Cameron kept us out of a centralising EU fiscal treaty and took our country out of the Eurozone bailouts, arguably the first ever return of powers from Brussels.

Conservatives have confidence in the Government¹s capacity to renegotiate our membership of the European Union before the British people take the decision to remain or leave.

As Mr Cameron said in his Bloomberg speech, “We have the character of an Island nation – independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty.”

That is the fundamental issue. We are an outward-looking, free trading nation which feels acutely the lack of democratic consent for European supranational government.

Read the rest of the article: Conservatives will stand up for Britain if the EU lets us down.

My predecessor, Paul Goodman, has given A warm welcome to Conservatives for Britain.

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10 Comments

  1. You have to prepare the ground by specifying the minimum definition of success, or a range of outcomes, from too little to far too much dismantling of the status quo. If there’s no scale already out there in the public debate with which to compare, ie if you only start the campaign post-renegotiation, that’ll be too late.

  2. I voted for you and I support many Conservative policies. I believe it is right for David Cameron to get the best deal possible for UK in Europe. The advantages of UK in Europe are more important than trying to get an impossible set of demands.

    You have the chance to make the Labour party irrelevant. Concentrate on this. Don’t cause David Cameron problems.

    Regards Mike

  3. Why does no one mention the European Economic Area. Time to tell the voters about UK membership of the European Economic Area. It includes EU members plus others.The European Economic Area (EEA) is a single market that provides for the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital.

    The EEA members are able to participate in the EU’s single internal market without being EU members, adopting almost all the relevant EU legislation other than laws regarding agriculture and fisheries. The EEA’s decision-shaping processes enable them to influence and contribute to new EEA policy and legislation from an early stage..

  4. I am almost certain to vote to leave the EU as I do not believe Cameron will achieve meaningful change. As a lifelong Conservative I am dismayed at The conditions Cameron is dictating for the referendum which are contrary to fairness and democracy. How can I support your group in a small attempt to redress this balance?
    Best regards
    Peter

  5. John Halsall

    How can I help?

    • David Stanley (@davidericstan)

      Help by voting NO in the referendum that is the best help you can give our country.

  6. David Stanley (@davidericstan)

    UKIP MEP’s willing to sack themselves via Brit-Exit have far more honour then some MP’s who want out but scared to say it. It is not about renegotiation it is about our country being run by us not the unelected bureaucrats of Brussels.

  7. Jonathan Whitney

    Cam will never vote out…never…it is supposed to be on the table for him but it is nowhere to be seen…

  8. Which MPs are members?