Chamber News: Norfolk businesses to be asked for their views on EU Referendum

The UK Government has committed to holding an in-out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU) by the end of 2017. In November 2015, Prime Minister David Cameron outlined his proposals for reform in a letter to the President of the European Council Donald Tusk. The four objectives for the Prime Minister’s renegotiation of the UK’s membership of the European Union were:

• Ensuring that steps to further financial union cannot be imposed on non-Eurozone countries, such as the UK
• Boosting competitiveness by setting a target for the reduction of the “burden” of red tape
• Exempting Britain from “ever-closer union” and enhancing national parliaments’ ability to block EU legislation
• Restricting EU migrants’ access to in-work benefits such as tax credits

A response to David Cameron’s letter was received in December. The main sticking point has been opposition from countries including Hungary and Poland to the idea of the four year ban on claiming some UK benefits. The message from the rest of the EU is that there cannot be a policy which discriminates against other EU nationals.

As the Prime Minister tours Europe highlighting Britain’s stance and looking to drum up support from other EU leaders, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) will be once again polling Chamber members across the UK to find out what the local business communities think about the EU Referendum. This will enable the British Chambers of Commerce to understand business views on reform of the EU, and the UK’s future relationship with the EU. You can have your sayhere.

The results of a previous BCC poll on the EU Referendum, held in August 2015, highlighted that if an in-out referendum were to be held immediately, 63% of businesspeople would vote to remain in the European Union, 27% would vote to leave, and 10% are unsure. Yet fully 50% said their vote could change depending on David Cameron’s renegotiation package.

The survey period is from Monday 25 January 2015 to Thursday 04 February 2015 and the results will be published a few weeks later.