#London: #UK The Prime Minister is heading for crunch talks in Brussels on Britain’s relationship with the European Union.
Over dinner tonight, David Cameron will face EU leaders and have his first significant opportunity to gauge support for the concessions he is seeking for Britain.
Bilateral meetings have revealed backing for some elements of the reform package, but negotiations are expected to be tough.
It comes as a poll from Lord Ashcroft indicates more British people now want to leave the EU than stay in it. The poll of 20,000 voters found 47% want out of the EU and only 38% wanted to remain – with 14% undecided.
The Prime Minister is essentially making four demands in his renegotiation of the UK’s deal with the 28-nation bloc.

He wants protection for EU countries who have not joined the Euro, reforms to promote competitiveness, and guarantees over UK sovereignty.
But it is his fourth demand that is the real sticking point: a four-year ban on UK in-work benefits for EU migrants.
It is seen in key European capitals as contrary to the fundamental principles of EU freedom of movement and non-discrimination, and therefore requiring a change to core EU treaties.
The main EU powers have ruled out treaty change now for political reasons.
Mr Cameron has invited his European counterparts to offer alternative policy reforms that can help the UK limit large flows of migration from other EU countries since the advent of the Eurozone crisis.

The European Council President Donald Tusk has asked for a political debate “with no taboos” ahead of a formal deal at the next summit in February.
In the intervening period, EU and UK officials are expected to thrash out the technicalities of a compromise over migration.
One option floated involves an emergency brake on the payment of benefits to EU migrants if flows become excessive.
One challenge for the Prime Minister is that even during the course of his negotiation, Europe has been focused on two larger crises: migration and the single currency.
The UK negotiation is vying for attention even today with important new initiatives on curbing the flows of refugees arriving from the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria, and attempts to put the crisis-ridden Eurozone on a firmer political footing.
Lord Lawson, the former chancellor and President of the Conservatives for Britain campaign group, said Mr Cameron’s reforms will not be accepted and that he should lead the campaign for Brexit.
Chuka Umunna, speaking for the In campaign, told Sky News “the best way to reform the EU was to remain at the table”.
A political deal tonight followed by a formal agreement in February could yet see a referendum by June of next year, before a likely resurgence of the migration crisis.
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