Eu referendum

At the start of this week, everyone was wondering how George Osborne was going to get out of trouble on tax credits, avoid a deeply damaging row over police cuts, all while still keeping to his surplus target. But thanks to the Office for Budget Responsibility upgrading its forecasts, Osborne was able to scrap the tax credit changes, protect the police budget and maintain his plan for a £10 billion surplus by the end of the parliament. But now, an even bigger challenge awaits Osborne: the EU renegotiation. I argue in my Sun column today that it is now the biggest threat to his chances of becoming Prime Minister. Boris

Is peace about to break out between the two Brexit campaigns, Vote Leave and Leave.EU? Today’s Daily Telegraph reports that Arron Banks, the co-founder of Leave.EU, has written to Matthew Elliot from Vote Leave to suggest they should ‘put all these disagreements to one side’. In the letter, Banks says he is happy to merge with the campaigns without any special terms: ‘In terms of uniting Leave.eu and Vote Leave we have no prior conditions and believe that discussions should now take place that reflect the complementary strengths that the two organisations enjoy. ‘I have a simple view of life and this is my unequivocal message moving forward – if you want to leave

The House of Lords has tonight voted to give 16 and 17 year olds the vote in the EU referendum. This question will now go to the Commons, which can try and overturn it and send the bill back to the Lords—so-called ‘ping pong’. The government has already made clear tonight that it will try and overturn this amendment. But, intriguingly, some Tory MPs have told me that they think the Commons will actually back votes at 16 for the referendum when this comes back down to the Commons. If this does happen, this could delay the referendum as the Electoral Commission argue that extra time will be needed to

The Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis is apparently the most trusted voice on the EU referendum, according to a new poll. James Morris from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, who was also Ed Miliband’s former pollster, has examined the state of the referendum campaign and reports that it is very close. According to Morris’ research, 45 per cent believe Britain should remain in the EU, compared to 42 per cent who would vote to leave — a result that is within the margin of error. 11 per cent are undecided. This polling also shows a big difference in voting intentions among different demographics and age groups. 18-54 year old men and woman who are

The government is getting its revenge on the Vote Leave campaign. After a stunt at Monday’s CBI conference — where two protesters interrupted David Cameron’s speech — Sir Eric Pickles has written to the Electoral Commission to suggest that the Vote Leave campaign should not be designated as the official Out campaign. The Guardian reports the former Communities Secretary as saying: ‘I believe the actions of Vote Leave in disrupting the CBI conference and declaring a strategy of intimidation and protest disqualify Vote Leave from being a designated lead campaigner in the forthcoming EU referendum campaign.’ In response, the Vote Leave campaign say Pickles’ letter is a sign that the government is panicking about the referendum. Rob Oxley, head of

David Cameron’s speech and letter on EU reform have gone down as you might expect with Eurosceptics: they hated them. MPs and campaigners think the Prime Minister should be pushing for bigger reforms and the renegotiation is looking like a sham. Some have concluded the Prime Minister has spent the past six months traveling around Europe, asking what others find acceptable and his rhetoric today is based on what he can achieve — on red tape and competitiveness for example — instead of what is best for Britain. One Eurosceptic Conservative MP says there is disappointment across the party: ‘The Prime Minister’s letter and speech were very disappointing and weak. A strong negotiating position is not being

The EU referendum looks set to be held next year – it’s now a question of whether it’s in the summer or autumn. Today’s Times reports that Whitehall is preparing for a referendum next June, if EU leaders are on side with David Cameron’s proposed reforms at December’s European Council meeting. The Prime Minister is set to deliver a speech at the CBI today, where he will describe the vote as ‘the biggest we will make in our lifetimes’ and will say the decision isn’t about whether Britain can ‘survive outside’ of the EU but whether it ‘adds to our economic security or detracts from it’. Eurosceptics think the pre-briefed portions of the speech and the

Could Theresa May be the politician to lead the ‘Out’ campaign in the European Union referendum? James examined this prospect in his politics column recently, and Westminster watchers have been trying to pick up clues as to whether the Home Secretary is preparing to support leaving the EU. Today she gave very little away on the Andrew Marr Show, but it was what she didn’t say that was the most telling. May insisted that the most important thing at the moment was that Britain did the renegotiation. ‘Let’s do this renegotiation, let’s see what reform we can bring about as a result of this renegotiation,’ she said, adding that the

A big problem with the coming European Union referendum is that voters won’t know what voting ‘leave’ means. If we do decide to quit, it will be a leap in the dark that could cause huge damage to the country. There is, therefore, a strong democratic case for spelling out the terms of our departure before it becomes final. The best way of achieving this would be for David Cameron to launch a double negotiation. As well as trying to improve the terms of our membership – the focus of his current talks with the EU – he would clarify our potential divorce deal. The voters would then get to

When you talk to representatives from friendly, non-EU countries about Britain’s referendum, two things strike you. First of all, nearly all of them want Britain to stay in the EU. I have not yet had one conversation where one of them has told me, even on background, that they think it would be better if Britain left. But the second thing that strikes you is their argument for why it would be better for Britain to stay in the EU relates, understandably, to the interests of their own country, not this country. They tend to like what Britain brings to the EU and think that it would be more difficult

David Cameron’s decision to make it clear that he is definitely not ruling out Brexit by saying that ‘people need to understand there are significant downsides’ to being outside the European Union has been greeted with derision in eurosceptic circles. Campaigners argue that the Prime Minister clearly doesn’t think he’ll get much from his renegotiation if he doesn’t think it’s worth continuing to threaten that he could possibly campaign to take Britain out of Europe in order to spook EU leaders into giving him what he wants. But there’s also an interesting internal implication to the Prime Minister’s speech in Reykjavik, which is that effectively ruling out a Brexit makes