Cameron set for high-stakes game of bluff with Brussels

When David Cameron writes to fellow European Union leaders in a couple of weeks, asking for new terms of membership, it will be the opening gambit in high-stakes negotiations that could see Britain quit the bloc.

Adding to the complexity and uncertainty of what the prime minister told his party this month would be "bloody hard work" is that he is effectively running two parallel poker games. One is with his 27 peers in the EU, the other with the British people, including Eurosceptic rivals in his own party.

Each card played will influence the risks and chances at the other table. The more he asks of the EU to convince Britons his demands are substantive, the likelier it is he will not get all he wants. The less he asks, the more he risks derision at home.

"The problem is that if David Cameron lays out a big package and comes home with only half, he has a big PR problem," said one senior EU politician who has been briefed privately by the prime minister on what he wants to achieve before calling a promised in-or-out referendum on Britain's membership by late 2017.

"I can't imagine what we can offer to make everyone in London go 'Wow, that is a new built Europe'. So if he sticks to this approach, there's a big risk he will lose this referendum."

The standard negotiating game of bluff, threat and double-bluff will be complicated by the intricacies of managing two sets of bargaining partners, the gulf between EU and UK political culture, and the loud running commentary of the British press.