A central plank of the victorious Conservative party’s election campaign was the promise of an “in-out” referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union. The pledge was that such a referendum would be held before the end of 2017, but no explicit date has been given. To say that there is a spectrum of opinion amongst Britain’s mainstream parties as to the merits of continued membership would be to put it mildly. However, with the exception of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and their solitary MP, all of the leaderships of the mainstream parties support continued membership of the EU albeit with various caveats.
The official position of the UK government is that they will seek reforms of the EU with their partners and so negotiate a better agreement, from the UK perspective, that they can commend to the electorate. The exact nature of the reforms that they wish to see is unclear. It seems that other EU members and the USA wish to see the UK remain within the bloc and that there is willingness to discuss EU reform, at the very least. However, the two (!) British groups openly campaigning for an EU exit will not be mollified by any such accord.
The two groups campaigning separately for a UK exit are the inspiringly entitled “Leave.EU (formerly called The Know) and Vote Leave. Vote Leave draws support from a cross-party grouping of MPs and members of the House of Lords and is organised by Matthew Elliot who founded the Taxpayers’ Alliance and Dominic Cummings, a former advisor to Michael Gove, a government minister. It is supported by established the Eurosceptic groups Conservatives for Britain (presumably the governing party does not act for Britain then…) Labour Leave and Business for Britain.
Leave.EU was founded by a UKIP donor, Arron Banks and is an “umbrella group” of anti-EU campaigners, according to UKIP leader, Nigel Farage (UKIP polled 4 million votes during the general election, but only has one MP). It claims to be "Britain's fastest-growing grassroots organisation".
Arguing the case for the UK to remain in the EU (and also drawing cross-party and House of Lords support) is the equally inspiringly named “Britain Stronger In Europe” which is being fronted by Lord Rose, a former boss of high street giant M&S. Key supporters include former PMs Tony Blair, Sir John Major, Gordon Brown, the Green Party’s only MP, Caroline Lucas, Labour MP Chuka Umunna amongst others.
The CBI is strongly backing continued UK EU membership, but this view is not universally held by UK businesses. Uncertainty will undoubtedly rise as the date for the vote nears – at this stage no nation state outside the UK has made any comment other than to urge the UK to continue to influence the EU from within.
As noted, the position of the government is that it will renegotiate Britain’s deal with the EU and then, on the strength of the deal, support the UK’s continued membership. Naturally, PM David Cameron, is refusing to rule out supporting a UK exit if he can’t get a satisfactory deal from his EU partners (any other position would be untenable when entering into negotiations, of course).