LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron plans to promise Britons a far-reaching referendum on its membership of the European Union in a long-awaited speech on Wednesday whose likely thrust has alarmed the Obama administration, according to excerpts released advance by his office.
The projected vote will be held if his Conservative Party wins the next election scheduled for 2015, he planned to say, and the ballot will take place within the next five years.
Mr. Cameron had initially planned to deliver the address in the Netherlands on Friday but postponed it because of the hostage crisis in the Algerian desert.
Speaking in London early on Wednesday, the excerpts said, Mr. Cameron will say: “It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time to settle this European question in British politics.”
“I say to the British people: this will be your decision. And when that choice comes, you will have an important choice to make about our country’s destiny,” the excerpts quoted him as saying.
However he ruled out an immediate ballot, saying that the turmoil within the 17-nation European single currency, the euro, of which Britain is not a member, meant that the broader European Union was heading for sweeping reforms.
A referendum before those changes are made, he said, would present an “entirely false choice.”
The Press Association news agency, which, like other British news media, carried the excerpts hours in advance of the speech, said the choice Mr. Cameron planned to offer would be an in-or-out question on whether Britain should remain as a member of the bloc.
Mr. Cameron had been under mounting pressure from his Conservative Party to make the announcement. The United States has been unusually public in its insistence that Britain, a close ally, stay in the union. Last week, a White House spokesman quoted President Obama as telling Mr. Cameron by telephone that “the United States values a strong U.K. in a strong European Union, which makes critical contributions to peace, prosperity and security in Europe and around the world.”
Earlier excerpts from the speech published on Friday quoted Mr. Cameron as saying that unless the European Union changed the way it is run, Britain would “drift toward the exit.”
According to the excerpts released last week, Mr. Cameron planned to note “a gap between the E.U. and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years and which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is — yes — felt particularly acutely in Britain.”
“If we don’t address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift toward the exit. I do not want that to happen. I want the European Union to be a success, and I want a relationship between Britain and the E.U. that keeps us in it.”
The projected vote will be held if his Conservative Party wins the next election scheduled for 2015, he planned to say, and the ballot will take place within the next five years.
Mr. Cameron had initially planned to deliver the address in the Netherlands on Friday but postponed it because of the hostage crisis in the Algerian desert.
Speaking in London early on Wednesday, the excerpts said, Mr. Cameron will say: “It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time to settle this European question in British politics.”
“I say to the British people: this will be your decision. And when that choice comes, you will have an important choice to make about our country’s destiny,” the excerpts quoted him as saying.
However he ruled out an immediate ballot, saying that the turmoil within the 17-nation European single currency, the euro, of which Britain is not a member, meant that the broader European Union was heading for sweeping reforms.
A referendum before those changes are made, he said, would present an “entirely false choice.”
The Press Association news agency, which, like other British news media, carried the excerpts hours in advance of the speech, said the choice Mr. Cameron planned to offer would be an in-or-out question on whether Britain should remain as a member of the bloc.
Mr. Cameron had been under mounting pressure from his Conservative Party to make the announcement. The United States has been unusually public in its insistence that Britain, a close ally, stay in the union. Last week, a White House spokesman quoted President Obama as telling Mr. Cameron by telephone that “the United States values a strong U.K. in a strong European Union, which makes critical contributions to peace, prosperity and security in Europe and around the world.”
Earlier excerpts from the speech published on Friday quoted Mr. Cameron as saying that unless the European Union changed the way it is run, Britain would “drift toward the exit.”
According to the excerpts released last week, Mr. Cameron planned to note “a gap between the E.U. and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years and which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is — yes — felt particularly acutely in Britain.”
“If we don’t address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift toward the exit. I do not want that to happen. I want the European Union to be a success, and I want a relationship between Britain and the E.U. that keeps us in it.”