What Cameron needs to do to avoid a rebellion over Europe

The backbench motion on an EU referendum has been cleverly crafted. Rather than just proposing a straight In/Out vote it includes a question on whether Britain ‘should renegotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and cooperation.’ This has given the motion real reach into the Tory benches.
 
Number 10 needs to play catch-up on this issue, and fast. The whips yesterday were talking about limiting the rebellion to ‘30 to 40 MPs tops’. But 46 Tory MPs — including the chairman of the 1922 committee, Graham Brady — have already signed the motion.
 
It strikes me that there are two ways out of this predicament for Cameron. The first is a letter from him and Hague to all Tory MPs making clear that the next Tory manifesto will contain a commitment to renegotiation and a referendum on the results of that. One prominent Eurosceptic told me last night that this assurance would be enough to make many Tory MPs not vote for the motion. The other is an amendment saying that the government should seek to repatriate powers from the European Union.
 
If Cameron doesn’t do either of these things, he could find himself dangerously out of step with a rapidly growing chunk of Tory backbench opinion. Strikingly, many of the new intake members of George Eustice’s Eurosceptic group — which the leadership has been relaxed about, and even encouraging of, so far — are currently planning to back this motion.