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Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (L) and London Mayor Boris Johnson (C) arrive for a rally in west London May 21, 2014.

Cameron's assertion that he will leave his European policy unchanged despite UKIP's success will be seen as an attempt to avoid a damaging debate on an emotive issue which obsesses his party and helped topple the country's last two Conservative prime ministers.

Anxious to win a majority in next year's national election, Conservative strategists want to focus on the fact that they lead a coalition government which has nursed Britain's economy back to health, a job they say is only half-done.

Cameron has promised to try to reshape Britain's relationship with the EU if re-elected next year before offering an in/out EU membership referendum by the end of 2017.

Spooked by the rise of UKIP and worried it could split the vote at next year's national election, some of Cameron's own Eurosceptic lawmakers have urged him to bring forward the date of that vote to 2016 and to step up his renegotiation drive.

Cameron, speaking after the UK Independence Party, which wants Britain to leave the EU, rode a tide of Euroscepticism and anxiety about immigration to beat the opposition Labour party into second place and his Conservatives into third, said he was sticking to his original plan.

"I don't think shortening the timeframe for the referendum would be right," Cameron told BBC radio, saying he was "confident" he could secure a significant renegotiation of Britain's EU ties if given the chance.

His party has however already promised a tougher immigration policy, seen as one of the key drivers of UKIP's success.

HUNG PARLIAMENT? Almost complete results from the European elections suggest no single party will score a decisive win in a national election next year, making another coalition government likely.

A different, first-past-the-post voting system and higher turnout will work against UKIP whose support is expected to fall. Sunday's results put Labour and the Conservatives on a similar share of the vote, around 25 percent, suggesting neither will win next year's national vote emphatically enough.

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David Cameron Rejects Calls for Early European Union Referendum

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Greek left-wing opposition leader Alexis Tsipras a candidate for the European Union's parliament during his speech in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki on Wednesday, May 21, 2014.

BRUSSELS, Belgium From Portugal to Finland, voters of 21 nations on Sunday were deciding the makeup of the next European Parliament, a sprawling exercise in democracy that will help determine the European Unions future leaders and course.

Opinion polls were predicting that candidates who want to slash the EUs powers or even abolish it could scoop up as many as a third of the seats which would be the strongest showing ever of disillusionment with the bloc.

When official returns are announced Sunday night, they could herald changes in EU policy in areas ranging from border control and immigration to a new trade and investment agreement being negotiated with the U.S.

Europeans in seven other nations have already voted. Unofficial exit polls reported a surge in support for Britains anti-EU UKIP party. In the Netherlands, however, the right-wing Euroskeptic Party for Freedom dropped from second to fourth place, the pollsters reported.

The 751-seat parliament is the only popularly elected body in the 28-nation European Union. Never before have so many candidates been bent on radically curtailing the EUs powers, ending their countrys membership or shutting down the union entirely.

We believe the best people to govern Britain are the British people themselves. We believe in running our own country, being proud of our democracy, controlling our borders, UKIP leader Nigel Farage told The Associated Press in an interview. We want our country back. Its been sold out.

However, many Europeans remain attached to the EU, associating it with greater economic opportunity and prosperity. One of them is Spanish grain and olive farmer Fidel del Olmo.

If Europe had not existed, Spanish agriculture would have disappeared, del Olmo said, citing the EU subsidies he and other farmers receive.

Originally posted here:
European Union faces key test in parliamentary vote

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