Britain's Conservatives have overtaken the Labour opposition in an opinion poll for the first time this year, enjoying a bounce from prime minister David Cameron's veto of a new European Union treaty, the latest Reuters/Ipsos MORI poll showed today.
The rise in support for Mr Cameron's Conservatives is all the more remarkable given Britons' increasing pessimism on the economy, with only 12 per cent expecting it to improve in the next year, the lowest figure since the credit crunch began to bite in September 2008.
Support for the Conservatives rose by seven percentage points to 41 per cent, while backing for centre-left Labour slipped two points to 39 per cent.
A YouGov poll for the Sun newspaper also put the Conservatives two points ahead of Labour, while the two largest parties were tied on 38 percent according to a survey by ComRes for the Independent newspaper.
The polls could worry Labour leader Ed Miliband, whose party is defending a parliamentary seat in a by-election in a west London suburban constituency tomorrow.
Mr Cameron insisted today he would “make no apology for standing up for Britain” by deploying the UK’s veto at last week's EU summit.
But Mr Cameron was accused of making a “catastrophic mistake” by Labour leader Ed Miliband, who urged him to re-enter negotiations with the other 26 EU states to try to get a better deal for Britain.
The clash came in the final session of prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons before Christmas, at which Mr Cameron was flanked on the government frontbench by his Liberal Democrat deputy Nick Clegg.
Labour MPs mocked Mr Clegg for exposing coalition rifts over Europe by staying away from the chamber on Monday for the Prime Minister’s statement on the Brussels summit.
Mr Miliband, who welcomed the deputy prime minister back to his seat, said that Mr Cameron had promised the coalition government would operate in a “collegiate” way, and asked: “What’s gone wrong?”
But Mr Cameron retorted: “No one in this House is going to be surprised that Conservatives and Liberal Democrats don’t always agree about Europe...I make no apology for standing up for Britain.”
Mr Miliband told Mr Cameron that negotiations on the implementation of last week’s inter-governmental agreement on a new fiscal compact for the eurozone would continue until March and it was not too late for the UK to rejoin discussions.
“In the cold light of day, with other countries spending the weeks and months ahead trying to see if they can get a better deal for themselves, isn’t the sensible thing to do to re-enter the negotiations and try to get a better deal for Britain?” asked the Labour leader.
Mr Miliband offered his sympathy to Mr Clegg, who was woken in the early hours of last Friday to be told that Mr Cameron had used the veto to block EU treaty changes designed to impose new fiscal disciplines on eurozone states.
“I think our sympathy is with the deputy prime minister,” said the Labour leader. “His partner goes on a
business trip, he is left waiting by the phone and he hears nothing until a rambling phone call at 4am
confessing to a terrible mistake.”
But Mr Cameron said Mr Miliband had failed to make clear whether he would have signed the proposed treaty, taunting him: “This leader of the Labour Party makes weakness and indecision into an art form.”