Britain to hold European Union referendum on June 23: Cameron

The cabinet meeting, the first to be held on a Saturday since the 1982 Falklands War, will formalise government support for staying in the European Union and Cameron has said ministers will then be free to campaign on whichever side they want.

British Prime Minister David Cameron delivers a statement on his European Union deal outside of No. 10 Downing Street, in London, Britain, 20 February 2016.

The deal he and the leaders of the EU’s other 27 countries reached aims to give Britain “special status” within the EU, Cameron said.

In 2011, when Cameron ordered Conservative members of parliament to vote down a bill suggesting a membership referendum, about 80 rebelled.

“I believe that the decisions which govern all our lives, the laws we must all obey and the taxes we must all pay should be decided by people we choose and who we can throw out if we want change”, he said. He said that his Cabinet backed his goal of keeping Britain in the EU.

But Priti is not the only minister to put “principle above personal loyalty to the Prime Minister” as the “No” campaign will include a number of other senior cabinet ministers, including Cameron’s close friend, Michael Gove, the justice secretary. The Prime Minister has fired the starting gun in a campaign where Labour will be campaigning for a Britain that remains in Europe on June 23. “I believe our country would be freer, fairer and better off outside the EU”, Gove said, adding, “Our membership of the European Union prevents us being able to change huge swathes of law and stops us being able to choose who makes critical decisions which affect all our lives”.

The views of London Mayor Boris Johnson will be the most closely watched, after an Ipsos Mori poll on February 17 found he’s second to only Cameron when it comes to influencing whether voters choose to stay or go.

“I think it’s pretty clear… there was no plan”, said Jonathan Portes, principal research fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research who specialises in immigration issues.

The leaders were working to overcome differences on the most contentious areas of Cameron’s demands for financial safeguards and curbs on some benefits for European Union migrant workers in Britain. Cameron said, “all they are offering is risk at a time of uncertainty – a leap in the dark”.

“We had a very good, very civilized, very dignified Cabinet meeting”.

Some EU leaders initially objected to giving Britain the right to cut back on welfare payments to foreign workers, but none wanted to see Britain, with its powerful economy and military, leave the EU.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, is also among those campaigning for the United Kingdom to leave the EU.