David Cameron has warned that leaving the European Union “could hurt working people for years to come” as he put the case for staying in the EU to MPs.
He said the choice was between an “even greater Britain” by staying in, or a “leap into the dark” by exiting.
There were thinly veiled swipes at Boris Johnson, including the PM ruling out the idea of a second referendum.
More than 100 Conservative MPs want to leave the EU, including some ministers sat alongside the PM in the Commons.
In the statement to the Commons, Mr Cameron told MPs that, as a prime minister who was not going to seek re-election, he had “no other agenda than what is best for our country”.
That was seen as pointed reference to Mr Johnson, has been accused by some of putting personal political ambition ahead of principle in deciding to campaign for EU exit.
The Conservative MP has rejected that suggestion and insisted that he has long been sceptical of the benefits of UK membership and the UK has a “great future” outside it.
Intervening during the PM’s statement, Mr Johnson urged the prime minister to say how the deal he negotiated would “in any way” return sovereignty to the UK.
The prime minister defended the deal he negotiated with the EU’s 27 other states, telling MPs it would give the UK a “special status” within the EU and ensure it never became part of a European super-state.
‘Not on ballot’:
The UK would be “safer and stronger” as a result of a exemption from ever-closer union, limits to in-work benefits for EU migrants that he said could last up to 2028 and protection for countries outside the eurozone, telling MPs that the UK was “better off fighting from the inside”.
He dismissed talk of a second referendum on the terms of withdrawal if the British people voted to leave in four months time, saying it was “not on the ballot paper”.
In such a scenario, he said Article 50 of existing EU treaties – the mechanism by which a country could leave the EU – would be triggered straight away and the process of separation would be difficult to reverse. If negotiations were not concluded within two years, he warned that many existing benefits of UK’s membership would lapse automatically.
He also challenged those backing EU exit to set out their vision for the future of the country.
“I recognise there are disadvantages of being in the EU but I can look the British people in the eye and say this is what it is going to be like if we stay in,” he said. “The people who are advising us to leave have got to spell out what the consequences of leaving are.”
The statement is the first opportunity Tory MPs have had to question the PM since Friday’s agreement and publicly set out their position ahead of the poll in four months time.
