David Cameron sets out key EU referendum demands

In a speech, the Prime Minister said he wanted the UK to be exempt from “ever-closer union” and to receive protection from further eurozone integration, while there should be more effort to boost the EU’s competitiveness.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said the government’s negotiations with other EU countries would be “tough”, with “blood all over the carpet”, and stressed that the UK could have a “very attractive” future outside the EU.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage said Mr Cameron was not calling for “substantial” reforms.

‘Deaf ear’

Mr Cameron said “emotional ties” would not keep Britain in the EU and he was simply asking for what the country “needs” to remain a member.

Mr Cameron denied he was seeking “mission impossible”, saying: “I have every confidence that we will achieve an agreement that works for Britain and works for our European partners.

“If and when we do so… I will campaign to keep Britain inside a reformed European Union. But if we can’t reach such an agreement and if Britain’s concerns were to be met with a deaf ear, which I do not believe will happen, then we will have to think again about whether this European Union is right for us. As I have said before, I rule nothing out.”

Mr Cameron said the in/out referendum, which will be held by the end of 2017, was “perhaps the most important decision the British people will have to take at the ballot box in our lifetimes”.

He warned that if the country voted to leave, it would not find itself in an economic “land of milk and honey”, and would have to forge similar trade ties with Europe without having as much influence.

The Prime Minister also stressed that so-called Brexit would have implications for national security.

“The EU, like Nato and our membership of the UN Security Council, is a tool that a British Prime Minister uses to get things done in the world, and protect our country.

“If the British Prime Minister was no longer present at European summits, we would lose that voice and therefore permanently change our ability to get things done in the world.”

Benefits

On benefits, he said 40 per cent of recent European Economic Area migrants received an average of around £6,000 a year in in-work benefits.

But he hinted that he was open to compromise on previous calls for access to in-work benefits to be denied to other EU nationals until they had lived in the UK for four years.

“We have proposed that people coming to Britain from the EU must live here and contribute for four years before they qualify for in-work benefits or social housing, and that we should end the practice of sending child benefit overseas,” Mr Cameron said.

“Now, I understand how difficult some of these welfare issues are for other member states, and I am open to different ways of dealing with this issue.

“But we do need to secure arrangements that deliver on the objective set out in the Conservative party manifesto to control migration from the European Union.”