The Tory leadership is delighted that the announcement of the new Europe policy has gone quite so smoothly. Team Cameron will be disappointed at the hostility of yesterday's Daily Mail
but there has been no significant upset from within the parliamentary
party or from The Sun or Telegraph. To a very large extent the party
appears to have recovered its once secret weapon: Unity. And, as expected, The Guardian and other left-of-centre media are largely content that the party has downed its Eurosceptic weapons.
The party was more worried about voters seeing Cameron as untrustworthy, because of his referendum shift, than they were worried at the anger of Eurosceptics. A poll of more than one thousand voters by PoliticsHome will reassure them:
PoliticsHome find that 52% think that David Cameron's new Europe policy is a "fair adaptation of a policy to fit new circumstances." 42%, however see Cameron as having broken a promise. 77% of Conservative supporters back the Tory leader's new policy.
Channel 4's 'Fact Check' team have also concluded that Cameron has NOT broken a promise:
"Cameron has campaigned so vociferously for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty that it's easy to think he gave a "cast-iron guarantee" to put the Treaty to the vote no matter what. But when he used that now-famous phrase, he did appear to be talking about the Treaty pre-ratification, rather than undoing the signed-on-the-dotted line that will now become an EU-wide reality."
63% of voters still want a referendum - very similar to the 66% of Tory members wanting a referendum (according to ConHome's own survey).
The first opinion poll after Cameron's European announcement found the Tory lead slightly up at 14%.
Tim Montgomerie
