Ken Clarke is one of the few prominent Conservative politicians still prepared to make the case for EU integration and he did it with gusto on the Today programme this morning. It was "complete folly" to put our membership at risk, he said, lamenting that the country had gone into "a nervous breakdown" over the subject. He dismissed the 53 Tory MPs who voted for a real-terms cut in the EU budget as "extreme Eurosceptics" and revealed that David Cameron had assured him that he was committed to continued British membership of the union.

"David Cameron assures the public, he’s always assured me, that he believes, as I do, that Britain’s place in the modern world has got to be in the EU.

It would be a disaster for our influence in global political events; it would be a disaster for the British economy, if we were to leave the EU. It damages our influence in these great critical events of the moment if we keep casting doubt on our continued membership."

Cameron, meanwhile, is being pulled in all directions on Europe today. In a speech at the CBI's annual conference, (which will also hear addresses from Cameron, Vince Cable and Boris Johnson), Ed Miliband will accuse him [2] of allowing Britain to "sleepwalk towards exit" in a "betrayal of our national interest."

The Labour leader will say:

For more than three decades, our membership of the EU has seemed to be a settled question. Not any more.

Public scepticism about the EU has been on the rise for some time. Some cabinet ministers in this government now openly say we would be better off outside the EU.

And many of our traditional allies in Europe clearly think Britain is heading to the exit door. Those of us, like me, who passionately believe that Britain is stronger in the EU cannot be silent in a situation like this. I will not allow our country to sleepwalk towards exit because it would be a betrayal of our national interest.

He will add that were the UK to leave the EU, it would be "the United States, China, the EU in the negotiating room - and Britain in the overflow room. We would end up competing on low wages and low skills: an offshore low-value economy, a race to the bottom".

At the same time, Cameron's former leadership rival David Davis will use a speech at St Stephen's Club to call for the PM to offer not one but two referendums on Europe. The first would be a vote on what powers the government should seek to repatriate from Brussels, the second, to be held following the conclusion of negotiations, would be a vote on whether to remain in the EU.

Cameron is still expected to use a speech before Christmas to outline plans to hold a referendum [3] after the next election on a "new EU settlement" for Britain, but Davis and other Tory MPs are growing increasingly impatient. As Davis said on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday: "Nobody believes it and why should they? The British public have been promised a referendum by the three major parties, and every single one has not delivered. Now, they may have their reasons, but they haven’t delivered and so the public feel they’ve been lied to – they won’t believe any more promises on referenda actually."

Elsewhere, the ever-helpful Boris Johnson uses his Telegraph column [4]to warn Cameron that nothing less than a veto of the EU budget will do. He writes:

It is time for David Cameron to put on that pineapple-coloured wig and powder blue suit, whirl his handbag round his head and bring it crashing to the table with the words no, non, nein, neen, nee, ne, ei and ochi, until they get the message.

Yet a veto, by compelling the EU to set annual budgets through qualified majority voting, would almost certainly lead to a large increase in the UK contribution. If Cameron wants to make a eurosceptic gesture, it could prove a costly one.