Cameron reveals four key demands of EU for UK to stay

• Forcing Brussels to make “an explicit statement” that Britain will be kept out of any move towards a European superstate. This will require an exemption for the UK from the EU’s founding principle of “ever closer union”.
• An “explicit statement” that the euro is not the official currency of the EU, making clear that Europe is a “multi-currency” union. Ministers want this declaration in order to protect the status of the pound sterling as a legitimate currency that will always exist.
• A new “red card” system to bring power back from Brussels to Britain. This would give groups of national parliaments the power to stop unwanted directives being handed down and to scrap existing EU laws.
• A new structure for the EU itself. The block of 28 nations must be reorganized to prevent the nine countries that are not in the eurozone being dominated by the 19 member states that are, with particular protections for the City of London.

Diplomats believe that this plan represents the most likely deal they can achieve because it is so difficult to negotiate a solution that is acceptable to 27 other EU member states, as well as the European Commission and the European Parliament. Critics, including Cabinet ministers on the right of the Tory party, are unlikely to be satisfied by this plan because it does not include legally binding changes to the EU’s governing treaties. But government figures say there is not enough time to deliver treaty changes before the referendum is held, by the end of 2017.

One senior minister said: “Our EU partners are not thanking us. They think we’re barking mad because the thing they all fear most is a referendum on Europe.

“But they now recognize that we are serious. This is happening and there is no way out. They realize we have to fight together if we are going to keep Britain in the EU.”