Cameron will not quit if UK votes to leave EU

stay on as PM if he ended up on the losing side, he said: “The answer to that question is yes.”

Mr Cameron insisted he was “confident we can get a good outcome” from haggling with EU counterparts, and he “hoped” a package could be finalised by the next summit on February 18.

That would make a vote in late June likely. But the Prime Minister indicated that if that timetable slipped the referendum may be delayed from summer and could take place “later” than September.

Mr Cameron claimed it had “always been my intention” to allow Euro-sceptic ministers to campaign for Brexit in a “personal” capacity, even though he ruled out such a move on the same programme a year ago.

Tory backbencher David Davis said he expected up to half the parliamentary party and “five or six” Cabinet ministers to campaign to leave Europe. He also called the lack of planning for the UK leaving the EU “disgraceful”.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has previously said a UK vote to leave, coupled with Scotland voting as a nation to stay, would produce a “clamour for another independence referendum which may well be unstoppable.”

And, writing in a Sunday newspaper, Mr McLeish said he would “anticipate” a second Scottish independence referendum in the event of a Brexit.

He said: “If Scotland votes to stay in and we are taken out by English votes then quite frankly I’d want to be part of an independent Scotland who in turn was a new member of the EU.”

Former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish says he will campaign for Scottish independence in the event of a so-called Brexit happening.