What is Cameron’s EU strategy?

“It is vital for our country — for the strength of our economy, for the health of our democracy and for the influence of our nation — that we get our relationship with Europe right,” wrote British Prime Minister David Cameron in an op-ed in The Sunday Telegraph. The article made the case for renegotiating UK ties to Europe, with the PM adding he was “not against referendums on Europe”. The UK media seized upon the quotes, with The Times complaining –

Mr Cameron is running two big risks in trying to flesh out a referendum policy now. His inability to answer basic questions on timing and content, while understandable, may be seen as indecision.

While the former Labour Party cabinet minister Douglas Alexander, writing in The Guardian, said that talk of an EU referendum “is both party political and premature. He added –

The truth is that Britain today needs an effective Europe strategy and a referendum may be a policy but it is no substitute for a strategy.

The front page of The Daily Express demanded an immediate vote on leaving the EU, with an editorial inside, which said –

What is the point of Britain trudging on with this euro-albatross round its neck, dragging the dead weight of a failing currency and a ruthless Brussels-based regime that seeks to destroy our sovereignty, override our laws and drain money from British taxpayers like a vampire gorging on blood?