Should we stay or should we go? Prime Minister David Cameron has proposed letting the British people decide whether to leave the European Union. If the Conservative Party wins the next election, Cameron said, it will renegotiate the terms of the U.K.’s EU membership to give British citizens more say over their own affairs, and then put that new treaty to a referendum. In recent months, voters upset about the EU overruling British court decisions have fled Cameron’s party for the U.K. Independence Party, and his proposal is seen as a bid to woo them back. “We have the character of an island nation—independent, forthright, passionate in defense of our sovereignty,” Cameron said. “We can no more change this sensibility than drain the English Channel.” Other European leaders disapproved. “You cannot do Europe à la carte,” said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
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