David Cameron: Plan for Britain's success

10 June 2013

In a speech ahead of next week's G8 meeting in Northern Ireland, Cameron said that the UK needed to be at the top table of all major organisations, including the EU. "Membership of these organisations is not national vanity – it is in our national interest", he said.

The fact is that it is in international institutions that many of the rules of the game are set on trade, tax and regulation. When a country like ours is affected profoundly by those rules, I want us to have a say on them. That doesn’t mean supinely going with the flow of multilateral opinion – the lowest common denominator approach to democracy, as we’ve seen in the past. Far from it. At the European Union we are prepared to stand up for Britain’s interests with resolve and tenacity. In Europe, actions speak louder than words. And look at the action we have taken.

• We have cut the seven-year EU budget, when everyone said it was impossible;
• We have got Britain out of the bail-out mechanism;
• And I have vetoed an EU treaty, which no British Prime Minister has done before me.

And our policy on the EU is clear. In the modern world, you need to work every advantage you’ve got. A single market of 500 million people on our doorstep, that worked properly, that was competitive, that was unbureaucratic and dynamic – that would be a huge advantage in this world.

The EU is a way off that goal yet. But I say – let’s try and realise that vision for all our sakes. That is why we are seeking to shape a new settlement in Europe; to get a better deal for Britain in it and to equip Europe as a whole to compete in the world.

And when we have negotiated that new settlement, as I said in my Bloomberg speech, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice: To stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in-out referendum. This is about boldly pursuing our interests - not by withdrawing from the world but engaging with it. That is the same attitude we’re bringing to this G8 presidency.

We have seized this chance. Not for us some turgid communiqués with little purpose. We’ve written some truly practical concerns into the heart of the G8 agenda.

• The free trade agreement between the US and EU – which could add as much as £10 billion to the UK economy.
• Getting behind African efforts to tear down the bureaucracy and red tape that prevents people from trading freely with one another.
• An international agreement on tax evasion because we can’t just clamp down on this in the UK, the cash would simply move elsewhere.
• We’re driving for more transparency in mining, oil and gas so that people in developing countries can see how their mineral wealth is being used and so that all companies – European, American, Asian – are competing on a level playing field.

This is how our country thrives – when we lead, when we strive to be more than the sum of our parts, the small island with the big foot-print in the world and that’s the way it must stay.

Full speech

UK G8 factsheets - trade, tax and transparency

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