David Cameron and his closest Cabinet allies have drawn up a four-point plan of key demands as the price for keeping Britain in the European Union.
Diplomats have been sent to win support from 27 European countries for a new deal between Britain and Brussels ahead of an “in-out” referendum.
A new campaign will on Monday attempt to persuade voters to choose to stay in the EU, after Eurosceptics who want to pull out of Europe started a rival operation last week.
Cabinet sources have told the Telegraph they are confident they can find a way to keep Britain inside the EU with better terms of membership. Their plan involves:
- Forcing Brussels to make “an explicit statement” that Britain will be kept out of any move towards a European superstate. This will require an exemption for the UK from the EU’s founding principle of “ever closer union”.
- An “explicit statement” that the euro is not the official currency of the EU, making clear that Europe is a “multi-currency” union. Ministers want this declaration in order to protect the status of the pound sterling as a legitimate currency that will always exist.
- A new “red card” system to bring power back from Brussels to Britain. This would give groups of national parliaments the power to stop unwanted directives being handed down and to scrap existing EU laws.
- A new structure for the EU itself. The block of 28 nations must be reorganised to prevent the nine countries that are not in the eurozone being dominated by the 19 member states that are, with particular protections for the City of London.