Agencies/London
Prime Minister David Cameron will refuse to back down in a showdown with rebel lawmakers who want a public vote on whether Britain should leave the European Union, ministers said yesterday.The Conservative leader, who opposes a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, faces the biggest rebellion of his premiership today when parliament votes on an issue that has caused deep divisions in his centre-right party for decades.Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said Cameron would stick to his decision to impose the toughest voting orders on Conservative members of parliament. Known as a “three-line whip”, lawmakers who defy the instruction to back the government will be effectively expelled from the party.“It is not government policy to have an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union,” Hammond told BBC television. “The three-line whip remains because the motion is contrary to government policy.” Cameron’s supporters say the vote is a distraction and that rebels risk fuelling economic uncertainty at a time when Britain should be helping the European Union to fix a sovereign debt crisis.While Cameron is all but certain to defeat the rebels in a vote that carries no legal weight, the showdown is seen as a test of his authority that risks raising tensions within his ruling coalition with the pro-Europe Liberal Democrats.Given Europe’s economic problems, Cameron’s ministers say now is not the time to revive a debate that helped to topple former prime minister, Conservative Margaret Thatcher, and dogged John Major’s government.“Right now, the immediate and urgent issue is sorting out the crisis in the euro zone,” Hammond added. “Investment, job prospects, economic growth in Britain are all threatened by the current crisis.”Questions about Britain’s ties with Europe have resurfaced in recent months, with eurosceptics on the right of Cameron’s Conservatives keen to use the euro zone’s financial crisis to renegotiate London’s ties with the EU. Cameron says it is in Britain’s interests to stay inside Europe because it needs access to the single market, Britain’s biggest trading partner. The economy has stagnated for a year and households are being squeezed by rising unemployment, above-target inflation and weak wage growth. Around 70 of the more than 300 Conservative lawmakers are expected to vote against Cameron today.The Liberal Democrats and the main opposition Labour Party will tell members to vote with Cameron. “We won’t do the opportunistic thing. We’ll do what’s right for Britain. We will give a gold-plated guarantee to Cameron that we will protect him against his own eurosceptics in the vote,” Labour defence spokesman Jim Murphy told the BBC. A poll for the Mail on Sunday newspaper found 61% of people wanted an EU referendum, while half wanted the government to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership to focus on trade. However, only 34% wanted to leave the EU, compared to 44% who wanted to stay and 22% who did not know.Eurosceptics up ante for CameronBritain’s hardline eurosceptic party yesterday upped the ante for Cameron, offering a tactical election ploy ahead of a divisive parliamentary vote on an EU membership referendum. Arch-eurosceptic rivals the UK Independence Party (UKIP) said they could step aside for candidates from Cameron’s Conservative party run in a future election if they vote today to hold the referendum. “In the past, I have made sure we didn’t stand (in elections) against candidates who vote on conscience and for their country,” UKIP Euro MP Nigel Farage said. “All I’m saying is we will give serious consideration to similar decisions,” he said, holding out an invitation to rebels tempted to break Cameron’s Conservative whip.