Government splits rather than EU budget rows dominated the British headlines yesterday as Prime Minister Tony Blair prepared for a Commons statement and his first clash over Europe with new Conservative leader David Cameron.
Downing Street was forced to deny reports that Chancellor Gordon Brown was furious over Mr Blair's "climbdown" in the dispute over the British rebate and CAP reform and his (Mr Brown's) apparent exclusion from the final phase of negotiations at the Brussels summit.
A 10 Downing Street spokesman insisted they had "negotiated as a government" and that it was understood across the government that the UK should pay its fair share of the cost of EU enlargement. That comment came as Tory MPs claimed Mr Blair had bequeathed Mr Brown "a poisoned chalice" by leaving him to plug a multibillion-pound hole in Labour's domestic spending plans in a key period ahead of the next general election - by which point Mr Brown hopes to have become prime minister.
And Mr Cameron seems certain to seek to exploit the renewed tensions between Mr Blair and Mr Brown later today in the Commons after yesterday's series of seemingly well-sourced stories carrying the strong suggestion Mr Brown would have fared better in the EU negotiations.
The recently elected Tory leader also received a second unexpected boost yesterday when deputy prime minister John Prescott went public in his opposition to Mr Blair's plans for school reforms.
In an interview for the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Prescott confirmed his fear that the proposal to create "independent" state schools could create a two-tier "first-class/second-class" education system to the disadvantage of working-class children.
He also caused dismay in Number 10 with an advertisement of his "Old Labour" instincts, attacking "the Eton mafia" now running the Tory party.
This double-whammy for the prime minister played out against a backdrop of predictable Conservative charges that he had "sold out" on his original pledge not to negotiate on the British EU rebate without firm commitments to cut farm subsidies.
The UK Independence Party MEP Nigel Farrage declared the result on Saturday morning "game, set and match" to French president Jacques Chirac, while the Conservative shadow foreign secretary William Hague taunted: "Seldom in the course of European history has so much been surrendered for so little."
Mr Hague said: "We agreed Britain should have been ready to negotiate in exchange for guarantees that these [farm policy] reforms would happen. But the government has spectacularly failed to achieve any such guarantees - merely vague promises of a process of reform in the future, in return for which they have surrendered £7 billion [€10.3 billion] in Britain's rebate alone."
Giving a flavour of today's likely exchanges in the Commons, Mr Blair countered: "If I had done what the Conservatives say I should have done and simply walked away and said 'we're not prepared to pay' . . . we would have wrecked our entire relationship with these new European countries, also with the new German government, and we would have done immense damage to our country's national interest."