Majority of British business leaders back staying in EU, survey shows

LONDON (Reuters) - A majority of British business leaders plan to vote in favor of keeping Britain within the European Union when a referendum is held later this year, according to a survey of 672 company directors released on Monday. Cameron has called a June 23 referendum on whether Britain should remain in the 28-country bloc and said that he will campaign to stay a member. On Friday, he secured an agreement on reforms to the EU that he said would give Britain special status in the bloc. The survey by the Institute of Directors (IoD), a lobbying group which represents businesses of all sizes, found that 60 percent of its members would vote to remain in the EU. Thirty-one percent said they would prefer to leave. The remaining 9 percent were undecided. With British public opinion split on whether to remain or leave the EU, business leaders are expected to have an influential role for those undecided voters who are primarily concerned with how the referendum will affect their jobs. The IoD survey found that 54 percent of respondents had discussed the implications of the referendum at a senior level, but few attached great significance to the agreement negotiated by Cameron in Brussels last week. Asked about the agreement's impact on their organization, 54 percent said it would not affect them, 34 percent thought it would be either "fairly good" or "very good". Ten percent said it was a bad deal. (Reporting by William James, editing by Larry King)