BRITISH PRIME minister David Cameron sought to soothe Conservatives’ anti-European Union feelings yesterday by backing the scrapping of unpopular human rights legislation, but he firmly ruled out a referendum on EU membership.
The EU issue will feature prominently during the party’s conference in Manchester this week, amid mounting clamour from some newly elected MPs for an “in/out” referendum on the UK’s membership.
MPs will be faced with a vote on EU membership, though one that will not be binding on the Conservatives/Liberal Democrats, later this year, after the House of Commons backbench committee agreed to a debate in a response to a petition signed by 100,000 people.
However, Mr Cameron gave his Eurosceptic-wing little succour: “It’s not our view that there should be an in/out referendum. I don’t want Britain to leave the EU. I think it’s the wrong answer for Britain.”
Refusing to entertain the idea of even holding a debate, Mr Cameron said it “would not be a very sensible course of action” for the Conservatives “to spend our time” on a referendum that would “create uncertainty for businesses in Britain”.
Eurosceptic opinion in the Conservatives, always strong, has hardened following last week’s warning by the European Commission that it would take legal action against the UK if ministers did not abandon plans to make it more difficult for nationals of other EU states to claim welfare.
The conference opened as 30,000 people marched through the city to protest against the impact of Conservative/Liberal Democrats spending cuts, with union leaders warning that the UK is heading for a general strike this winter.
“We are now on the edge of the biggest strike in Britain in 80 years . . . If after the 30th of November they don’t back down, carry on making cuts, carry on robbing pensions, then we have to strike again and again until we win,” said Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union. “If you never fight, you lose every time. Now’s the time to fight, now’s the time to defeat the government.”
Urging unions, churches, students and pensioners to form “an amazing coalition of resistance”, Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, said: “If you want to call it a general strike, then so be it.”
Earlier, home secretary Theresa May made clear that she wants the Human Rights Act, brought in by Labour, repealed and replaced by a more limited British Bill of Rights, following a series of judgments that has prevented the deportation of convicted foreign-born criminals.
* Mr Cameron yesterday apologised to two women MPs for comments he made in the House of Commons.
The prime minister sparked outrage from Labour when he told the party’s treasury spokeswoman, Angela Eagle, to “calm down, Dear” during Prime Minister’s Questions.
And he was criticised for telling the Commons that one of his own MPs, Nadine Dorries, was “extremely frustrated” and then appearing to join in the laughter which his double entendre provoked on the Conservative back benches.
Yesterday he told the Sunday Timeshe had "screwed up" in the exchanges. "If I offended anyone, I am hugely sorry," he said.
