Ed Miliband interview: 'Britain must stop heading for EU exit The rise of Ukip is causing consternation among many of those close to David Cameron, who are warning the Prime Minister to address the threat by declaring his own vision of Britain's future with the EU. This would include a clear pledge to hold a referendum around the time of the next election in 2015, or shortly afterwards if he were to remain in Downing Street. Mr Cameron is said to be working on a forthcoming speech along these lines, but remains unsure about the best time to make it or precisely what he should say about a referendum. Some in his party claim he is "dithering," while others allege he has no European policy at all. Mr Miliband is only too keen to exploit the prime minister's discomfort. Tomorrow he will make a speech to the Confederation of British Industry's annual conference in London, in which he will adopt a new approach: accepting that Euro-sceptics must not be dismissed as wild-eyed extremists, but must be listened to because some of their arguments are right. The Labour leader has no intention of trying to turn Labour into a red-blooded Eurosceptic party indeed, he repeatedly stresses that Britain's future must remain within the EU. Neither will he pledge a referendum on the issue, for now at least. This will disappoint some in his party, including shadow ministers who have argued that to make such a move would give Mr Cameron nightmares. Calling a public vote, he claims, is not a priority. If Britain started a lengthy debate on its future, culminating in an "in/out" referendum, companies with interests in Britain such as Nissan, Toyota and Tata, would be unlikely to invest here in the meantime, he argues. However, Mr Miliband knows that attitudes must change. He believes that the Eurosceptic case must be understood and engaged with rather than being ignored or dismissed. He is adamant, however, that Britain must remain inside the EU. I believe that there is a danger that, under the current Conservative leadership, we are sleepwalking towards the exit. I think it's clear the way the centre of gravity of the Conservative Party has moved, and I think that is quite dangerous for the country and I think quite dangerous for business above all. The Prime Minister is powerless to make the right decisions because he is the prisoner of the Tory Right, Mr Miliband argues. He claims that the Government has been in an "extraordinary place" ever since the claim, never denied, that Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, believes the country would be better off if it left the EU. Even Sir John Major at his weakest never had to deal with something like that, Mr Miliband claims. We've got Cabinet ministers openly making the case for exit. That didn't happen under John Major. I mean, he may have had his 'bastards' but you've got Michael Gove going around saying, 'Well, if there was a referendum tomorrow I'd vote to leave. What's happened to collective responsibility? It's partly probably jockeying for a post-Cameron world but I think the business community is genuinely very worried. I think they are genuinely worried that we're going to sleepwalk towards an exit under Cameron. This week the Prime Minister embarks on high-wire negotiations in Brussels with other EU leaders to set the budget for 2014 to 2020. He has already threatened to veto any deal which would increase spending by more than inflation a move which would be popular in Britain but which risks an unwanted outcome: budget increases being decided year on year without any country having the power to block them. Mr Miliband believes that the early veto threat is a sign of weakness: "You don't start rampaging around threatening the veto, you seek to build alliances for your position." He twists the knife by pointing out that Baroness Thatcher, heroine of the Euro-sceptics, never used Britain's veto. She threatened it a lot that's a sign of skill and long-termism, and I just don't think that Cameron has that. Lady Thatcher, of course, fought hard to win Britain's much-prized rebate from the EU, a large part of which was given away by Tony Blair in budget negotiations in return for vague promises of reform to the much criticised Common Agricultural Policy which never materialised. Such reforms to rebalance the budget away from farm subsidies in favour of energy, innovation and infrastructure are high on Mr Miliband's shopping list. He also wants changes to an EU immigration system which in the past has seen Britain receive hundreds of thousands of people from "accession countries" - nations that have just joined the EU - including Poland. Bulgaria and Romania will gain the same rights at the end of next year. After that, other countries are candidates to join the EU, including Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and, most controversially, Turkey, which has a population of 70 million. Opening Britain up to unlimited migration from the new areas would be hugely contentious. "I've said we should have maximum transitional controls for new accession countries, and I think that's the right position, and that learns the lessons of what we didn't do right in government, where we didn't have maximum transitional controls in relation to Poland," Mr Miliband says. Next, the Labour leader takes aim at "state aid" rules imposed by the European Commission to make sure that national governments do not prevent competition in the EU by backing their own countries' businesses. I think that actually the nation state does need more flexibility and I think that sometimes, that the European rules are too rigid, so I'm perfectly happy to look at areas like that. The Labour leader argues that Mr Cameron is unable to achieve such reforms to the benefit of Britain because of his difficulties with the Conservative Right. "Nobody thinks he's at those negotiations with anything other than with an arm up his back from the people in his own party," Mr Miliband claims. Britain is not "taken seriously" within the EU because other national leaders and their ministers think the UK is "in the departure lounge." He adds: "People are always writing us off as if to say that these guys are going toward the exi that's very dangerous for us." Those advocating withdrawal say that Britain would prosper outside the EU as it would still have access to a market of 500 million people but would not longer be stifled by regulations but Mr Miliband does not agree. If Norway has oil and the Swiss have tax advantages, what would our unique selling point be? I fear our USP would be low wages and all of that. And I don't think that's a very attractive vision for Britain. The answer, he suggests, is reform backed by recognising that some of the arguments advanced down the years by Euro-sceptics were right and should not be seen simply in terms of lurid tabloid headlines about bonkers Brussels directives. Too often people have assumed that we have got to make the rise of Euroscepticism about the mythology of bendy bananas and bans on chocolate, not the fact that the European budget looks like it's suited to the 1950s and not the 21st century. What I would say is never shrink from being open about the problems of the European Union. Such an acceptance of Euroscepticism or at least some of its arguments remains a tricky position for a Labour leader, even after the party teamed up with rebel Tories to inflict an embarrassing Commons defeat on the EU budget last month. Last week the party's grand panjandrum, Lord Mandelson, the former EU commissioner, warned about the alliance in a newspaper article. He said: "Whether this particular tactical alliance will last is questionable. Labour's leaders are preoccupied by domestic politics, not Europe's future. They want to turn Mr Cameron into John Major: 'weak at home, weak abroad'. This generation of Labour leaders is not anti-Europe, but it is not anchored as firmly in the pro-EU attitudes of the past. Mr Miliband is, clearly, heading in a new direction one which may help him, he believes, reach his hoped-for ultimate destination: Number 10 Downing Street.