UK Tory legislators may push for exit from EU

‘ Up to 100’ MPs from the ruling party are preparing to defy their leader by pledging support for an EU exit in their 2015 poll manifestos, regardless of any changes to Britain’s membership

London/ Berlin, Sept. 1: Conservative legislators could pledge to support Britain leaving the EU, irrespective of what powers are returned to London from Brussels, newspaper the Independent has reported.

The report underlines the growing pressure facing Prime Minister David Cameron as he contends with the rise of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party ( UKIP) ahead of a May 2015 general election. Mr Cameron has vowed to renegotiate a return of powers from Brussels to London and hold a referendum on EU membership in 2017, and has said he would campaign for Britain to remain in the bloc. But the Independent reported that “up to 100’ MPs from his ruling Conservative party are preparing to defy their leader by pledging support for an EU exit in their 2015 election manifestos, regardless of any changes to Britain’s membership. “My election manifesto will confirm my view that we should leave the EU,” Conservative MP Mark Reckless said.

Conservative MP Jacob Rees- Mogg said he had not been approached about the idea but said he was “very interested”. “If the Prime Minister hasn’t, by the election, set out very clearly his terms for renegotiation and the circumstances under which he would call for a No vote it would be extremely tempting to put a personal statement in one’s election address to say that I will vote for Out,” Mr Rees- Mogg told BBC radio. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives retained their grip on power in the eastern state of Saxony on Sunday but now face opposition from a fledgling anti- euro party, which won its first seats in a regional assembly.

Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats won 39.4 per cent of the vote in the regional Parliament, according to provisional results.