Britain should quit European Union - Nigel Lawson

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron's plan to claw back powers from the European Union is doomed and Britain would be better off leaving the 27-member bloc, former chancellor Nigel Lawson said on Monday.

Lawson, who served as Margaret Thatcher's chancellor from 1983 to 1989, is the most senior member of Cameron's Conservative Party to call for Britain to withdraw from the EU.

Cameron promised in January to renegotiate the terms of Britain's 40-year-old membership of the bloc and to hold an "in-out" referendum if he is re-elected in 2015.

Writing in the Times newspaper on Monday, Lawson said Cameron attempts to claw back powers from Brussels would probably only secure "inconsequential" results.

Lawson said the EU had become a "bureaucratic monstrosity" and Britain's economy would be stronger if it left the bloc after 40 years.

"I strongly suspect that there would be a positive economic advantage to the UK in leaving the single market," Lawson wrote. "In my judgment the economic gains would substantially outweigh the costs."

His intervention piles pressure on Cameron, days after the Conservatives were shaken in local elections by the surging anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP).

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

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