LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron faced the biggest rebellion of his premiership on Monday with dozens of his own party members in parliament set to back calls for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.

The debate reignites a long-simmering row over Britain’s relationship with Europe which tore apart the Conservatives in the 1990s and which Cameron — a pragmatic eurosceptic — had tried to defuse since he became party leader six years ago.

Although the vote in parliament looks set to fail and carries no legal weight, it has rattled Cameron’s authority and proven an unwelcome distraction as he fights to keep Britain at the forefront of negotiations to solve the euro zone crisis.

It comes a day after French President Nicolas Sarkozy berated Cameron at an EU summit for wanting to be involved in crisis talks but then pandering to Conservatives at home by lecturing Europe from afar and gloating about the euro crisis.

The Conservative leader, who wants Britain to remain in the EU while clawing back powers from Brussels, has ordered his party to vote against the motion, saying it is a distraction when the euro zone is reeling from a debt crisis.

“When your neighbours’ house is on fire, your first impulse should be to help them to put out the flames, not least to stop the flames reaching your own house. This is not the time to argue about walking away,” Cameron told a noisy parliament.

Right-wingers in the Conservative Party believe Cameron has toned down his position on Europe since last year’s election in a concession to the pro-European Liberal Democrats, his minority coalition partner.

LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron faces an open rebellion from his Conservative party next week when parliament debates whether the coalition government should hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.

Eurosceptics, disappointed by Cameron’s failure to get tough on Europe, have jumped on a financial crisis threatening to tear apart the euro zone to demand that Britain rethinks its dealings with the 27-nation EU trading bloc.

While there is no immediate danger of Britain pulling out of the EU, the non-binding debate on Monday will challenge Cameron’s authority, expose party rifts and remind Europe that the euro zone crisis has galvanised Britain’s eurosceptics.

The Conservative leadership is expected to order its party to vote against a motion on Monday calling for a referendum on whether Britain should stay in the EU, leave or renegotiate its terms of membership.

“I believe we will see a record rebellion,” said Conservative lawmaker Zac Goldsmith, one of 76 signatories to the motion and someone who has pledged to vote for a referendum regardless of government orders.

“There can’t be many questions more important than our relationship with the EU, and it is time to have a national debate.”

Cameron would not be obliged to act on the result of the parliamentary vote because it was not put forward by the government, but any defeat or large rebellion would put pressure on him to at least seriously consider its result.

LONDON (Reuters) – The Labour Party called on Thursday for the coalition government to rush through an emergency budget to change course on its austerity plan and pull out all the stops to support the ailing economy.

Labour, ousted last year after 13 years in power, said the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s fiscal statement due on November 29 should be brought forward and upgraded to stop Britain’s economy from sliding into another slump.

The coalition says it will not alter plans to all but wipe out a record budget deficit of about 10 percent of national output by the 2015 election.

Ministers are growing increasingly concerned about a lack of growth in the economy, but officials admit there is little that can be done by government to stimulate demand in the short term.

“The longer this goes on, the worse it’s going to get,” Labour’s finance spokesman Ed Balls told reporters. “How bad do things need to get before the government accepts things aren’t working. Isn’t a year of stagnation enough?”

“We can’t afford to wait 45 more days for the Autumn statement before the Chancellor (George Osborne) confirms downgraded growth and upgraded borrowing.”

Labour’s demands coincided with a call from several leading economists for the government to revisit its plans in articles for the left-wing New Statesman political magazine.

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron Monday backed Defence Secretary Liam Fox before taking delivery of a report on whether Fox broke ministerial rules in his dealings with a friend who has business interests in the defence sector.

Fox’s future hangs in the balance over media and political accusations of risking national security by granting high level access to his friend Adam Werritty, who has no official post within the defence ministry but said he was an adviser to Fox.

“First of all let me say Liam Fox does an excellent job as secretary of state for defence,” Cameron told the BBC. “He gives that department good leadership.”

The opposition added to the mounting political pressure on Fox, and demanded a fuller explanation Monday over his contacts with Werritty.

Fox, one of the most senior members of Cameron’s government and who will face parliament later Monday, apologised on Sunday for giving “the impression of wrongdoing” in frequent private meetings with Werritty but said he would not quit.

He denied helping Werritty’s commercial work, giving him access to secret information or personally profiting from the relationship, but said he accepted that he had mishandled his dealings with his former flat-mate and best man at his wedding.

“Of course there are a whole series of questions that have come out of the media that Liam is answering,” Cameron said, adding: “He answered them last night, he gave a good account of himself.”

LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday backed Defence Secretary Liam Fox before taking delivery of a report on whether Fox broke ministerial rules in his dealings with a friend who has business interests in the defence sector.

Fox’s future hangs in the balance over media and political accusations of risking national security by granting high level access to his friend Adam Werritty, who has no official post within the defence ministry but said he was an adviser to Fox.

“First of all let me say Liam Fox does an excellent job as secretary of state for defence,” Cameron told the BBC. “He gives that department good leadership.”

Britain’s opposition added to the mounting political pressure on Fox, and demanded a fuller explanation on Monday over his contacts with Werritty.

Fox, one of the most senior members of Cameron’s government and who will face parliament later on Monday, apologised on Sunday for giving “the impression of wrongdoing” in frequent private meetings with Werritty but said he would not quit.

He denied helping Werritty’s commercial work, giving him access to secret information or personally profiting from the relationship, but said he accepted that he had mishandled his dealings with his former flat-mate and best man at his wedding.

“Of course there are a whole series of questions that have come out of the media that Liam is answering,” Cameron said, adding: “He answered them last night, he gave a good account of himself.”

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – The world stands on the brink of another economic crisis and Britain faces a long road back to prosperity, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday, offering no “short cuts” to growth as his coalition sticks doggedly to its austerity plan.

The government is looking at ways to ease the flow of credit to business and the Bank of England may pump more money into a stagnant economy as soon as Thursday, although Britain’s economic fate hinges on resolving the crisis in the euro zone, ministers say.

Cameron’s set-piece speech to his Conservative party annual conference was overshadowed by fresh evidence that Britain’s economy hardly grew at all in the nine months between October last year and June of this year.

STICKING TO THE PLAN

Under pressure to soften spending cuts that will cost more than 300,000 public sector jobs, the Conservative leader insisted the only way to get Britain moving forward was to put its public finances in order and build a new economy based on advanced manufacturing, life sciences and technology.

“Our plan is right. And our plan will work. I know you can’t see it or feel it yet … But this is the crucial point: it will only work if we stick with it,” he said in the northern English city of Manchester.

“I know how tough things are. I don’t for one minute underestimate how worried people feel, whether about making ends meet, or the state of the world economy. But the truth is, right now we need to be energised, not paralysed by gloom and fear.”

LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – The world is on the brink of another deep economic crisis but Britain must stick to its deficit-cutting plans, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday, urging patience and calm while his coalition government tries to reshape a faltering economy.

Cameron, faced with new evidence on Wednesday that Britain’s economy hardly grew at all in the nine months between October last year and June of this year, is under increasing pressure to soften his austerity plans and to act to spur growth.

But the Conservative leader, speaking to his party’s annual conference, insisted the only way to get Britain moving forward was to get its public finances in order and build a new economy based on advanced manufacturing, life sciences and technology.

“Our plan is right. And our plan will work. I know you can’t see it or feel it yet … But this is the crucial point: it will only work if we stick with it,” he said in the northern English city of Manchester.

“I know how tough things are. I don’t for one minute underestimate how worried people feel, whether about making ends meet, or the state of the world economy. But the truth is, right now we need to be energised, not paralysed by gloom and fear.”

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s growth strategy has been criticised for focusing too heavily on long-term changes such as building better infrastructure and rebalancing the economy towards manufacturing and exports.

Critics also say Britain’s social fabric is being damaged by austerity, pointing to rising unemployment, some families unable to afford a month’s food and more shocking evidence of social breakdown – summer riots that tore through several city centres.

MANCHESTER, England, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Britain must help the euro single currency zone in its hour of need but must also aim to claw back powers from the European Union when the time is right, Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday.

Britain’s relationship with Europe has featured regularly at the eurosceptic Conservatives annual conference this week, ranging from gloating over the euro zone’s woes to worrying about the economic impact it will have at home.

Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has disappointed many in his centre-right party who wanted, but failed to get, a referendum on Britain’s EU membership after coming to power in a coalition with the smaller Liberal Democrats last year.

Others complain that Cameron, a eurosceptic who nonetheless wants Britain to remain in the EU, has let the pro-Europe Lib Dems soften the government’s attitude towards Europe.

“Fourteen years ago, I predicted that the euro zone would become a burning building with no exits,” Hague told the Conservative conference in the northern English city of Manchester.

“But because the euro zone countries are our friends and neighbours, and because our prosperity and financial stability is tied with theirs, we must now support them in quenching the flames.”

Finance minister George Osborne has repeatedly stressed how important a strong European economy is to Britain’s struggling economic recovery. Europe is Britain’s main trading partner and many British banks have exposure to the continent.

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – More British retailers will go bust in the coming months, others are likely to shed jobs and sales look set for a prolonged slump, the head of the British Retail Consortium told Reuters on Tuesday, warning of 18 months of hard times for the high street.

Stephen Robertson, who represents many of Britain’s biggest retailers, said consumer morale was heading towards levels not seen since the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers despite near-unprecedented levels of discounting in shops.

“We are going into an extended period where we are going to be under huge pressure,” Robertson said in an interview at the ruling Conservative Party’s annual conference in the northern city of Manchester.

“The next six months are going to be characterised by very low levels of growth. I think we’ve probably got another 18 months of real challenge,” he said.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government is looking to the private sector to ignite the stalling economy while ministers slash billions of pounds in spending and hundreds of thousands jobs in the public sector over the next four years to tackle a record budget deficit.

There has been little sign so far that the private sector will expand rapidly enough to offset a shrinking state – Britain’s economy has hardly grown for the last three quarters.

Robertson said the government needed to do more to help businesses take up the slack.

MANCHESTER, England, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron will warn Britons on Wednesday that the road back to full economic health will be a long one, but urge them to stick with his coalition’s austerity programme saying it is the only way to deal with the world debt crisis.

Cameron will deliver the message in his closing speech to the ruling Conservative Party’s annual conference — an event that has been overshadowed by the financial crisis in the European Union, its main trading partner.

Seeking to temper his customary optimism with a dose of realism, Cameron will acknowledge that people are anxious about higher prices and rising unemployment as Britain struggles to recover from the financial crisis of 2008-09.

“People want to know why the good times are so long coming,” Cameron will say, according to advance excerpts from his speech.

“The answer is straightforward but uncomfortable. This was no normal recession; we’re in a debt crisis.”

“The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts … It means governments — all over the world — cutting spending and living within their means.”

Support for Cameron’s Conservatives has held up despite the economic problems, rioting in English cities this summer and a newspaper phone hacking scandal that raised questions about the prime minister’s judgment.