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Mr Hammond said Brussels will not be able to extinguish demands for a vote Foreign Secretary claimed the EU has become a 'putative superstate' He said 'politicians do not have the power to stop' UK bid to return power

By Tom McTague, Deputy Political Editor for MailOnline

Published: 07:18 EST, 17 October 2014 | Updated: 09:52 EST, 17 October 2014

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the EU is now a 'putative superstate'

Britain is 'lighting a fire under the European Union' by pledging an in-out referendum, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said today.

Mr Hammond said Brussels would not be able to extinguish public demands for a vote on Britain's membership of the EU following the Prime Minister's pledge to hold a referendum by 2017.

The Foreign Secretary, who remarks are among the most Eurosceptic ever made by a serving Cabinet minister, added that the EU has become a 'putative superstate' without Britain's say-so.

Mr Hammond's claim came in a Commons debate today on a Tory bid to guarantee an EU referendum in law after the next election.

He told the House that the issue was 'surely the most important strategic question facing this country', adding: 'We are lighting a fire under the European Union by this piece of legislation.

'We are setting off a process that politicians and governments do not have the power to stop.'

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UK 'lighting a fire under the European Union' boasts Philip Hammond