Pals ... David Cameron and Germany's Angela Merkel yesterday
Posted on 01/30/2012 6:45:19 PM PST by SmithL
TORY MPs heaped pressure on David Cameron yesterday to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.
As the PM met European leaders in Brussels, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, his backbenchers plotted to hold polls to judge the mood.
The People's Pledge campaign will hold its first poll in April, with ten more this year and 100 in 2013. Sixty-four MPs so far back the campaign — 44 are Tories.
Eurosceptic Douglas Carswell said: "The decisions affecting my constituents' lives are now taken by remote and unaccountable politicians." It came as the Government performed a U-turn on last month's European veto. The PM had refused to sign an EU deal to save the euro.
But yesterday Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain will not block EU officials using the European Court of Justice to oversee the new measures. Mr Cameron said Britain would only step in "if national interests are threatened".
The Czech Republic also refused to sign the deal last night — but it blamed a procedural problem, not outright opposition. Meanwhile French President Nicolas Sarkozy was blasted for claiming Britain had "no industry". A No.10 source said: "It isn't true. UK industrial production as a share of GDP is 15 per cent. In France it's 12.5 per cent."
Mr Cameron described Sarkozy's plans to impose a tax on financial transactions as "mad" — and urged French banks to base themselves in London.
He said: "We will welcome French banks to the United Kingdom and boost our economy that way."
Maggie told them so.
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