Even the UK’s most die-hard Eurosceptic Conservatives now accept that next month’s implementation of the EU’s Lisbon treaty means there will be no referendum on it. Undaunted, they moved swiftly to urge a referendum on renegotiating the UK’s place in the EU. That call has – rightly – been rejected by the Tory leadership. But the party is not at ease on Europe.

The overwhelmingly Eurosceptic tone of the Tories is a real political problem for David Cameron, party leader. He knows the UK must play a serious and pragmatic EU role. Yet instead of asserting his authority and facing down this strand of Conservative opinion, he has chosen a policy and rhetoric that play to popular distrust about UK relations within the EU.