E.U. battle casts shadow over Cameron’s election success

Prime Minister David Cameron had barely toasted his surprise election victory before attention turned to Britain’s future in Europe and the onerous task of quelling rebellious eurosceptics within party ranks. In some of his first comments since winning Thursday’s election, Cameron said he will campaign to stay in the EU, but only if he can secure reforms such as changes on migration and benefits, and the repatriation of certain powers to London.

By demanding a new settlement and setting a 2017 deadline for an in-out referendum, the prime minister has offered himself as a hostage both to his European partners and to the hardline eurosceptics in his own party.

Financial Times writer Philip Stephens

The centre-right leader will have to strike a delicate balance to both appease partners and the anti-EU faction of his Conservative party. Cameron’s narrow majority of just 12 seats in parliament means the eurosceptics’ influence will be amplified, political commentators say, encouraged by an election in which a record 12 percent of voters backed the anti-EU, anti-immigration UK Independence Party.

Europe