UK 'Holding a gun' to EU as Cameron aims for early referendum
"If Britain votes to leave it will be a seismic event," said John Springford, senior research fellow at London's Centre for European Reform. "Cameron's strategy of having a renegotiation and then a referendum has been felt by the other leaders as essentially holding a gun to their heads; there's been resistance to allowing Britain to set the terms of the future direction of the EU."