UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has dismissed setbacks for supporters of the single European currency after a poll suggested record hostility to UK euro entry.

Mr Cook described as "common sense" comments from head of the European Central Bank Wim Duisenberg that the UK is "many years" away from joining the euro.

Mr Cook told the BBC: "We are not going to be joining the euro in a year or two, therefore there I have no disagreement with him."

Mr Cook's remarks came as an opinion poll carried out for BBC Radio 4's Today programme suggested that anti-euro sentiment has reached a new high among the public.

In the survey 69% of voters said they were opposed to the pound being replaced by the euro.

And only 53% of those polled were in favour of staying in the European Union itself, with 34% backing withdrawal.

The government is expected to hold a referendum on entry into the single currency early in the next Parliament, once its five "economic tests" have been met.

With the vote not on the immediate political horizon, Mr Cook said: "There is no problem for us in the fact that most people agree that we should not be joining now."

But he said the government will "continue to make the case" for what he said were the benefits of joining the new currency.

The message was reinforced by Trade and Industry Secretary Stephen Byers, who said Mr Duisenberg's comments backed up the government's assertion that Britain's economy must converge with the rest of the EU before it could join the euro.

'Economic error'

But he told BBC Radio 4's World at One that the opinion poll showed there was still a political battle to be won on Britain's continuing EU membership before it could even think about joining the single currency.

Shadow chancellor Francis Maude said the government was spending millions of pounds on plans for the euro "despite the mounting evidence that the British economy is out of step with the rest of Europe, and that it would be a huge economic error".

But Liberal Democrat economics spokesman Matthew Taylor said: "It is already understood that there will be no referendum until after the General Election and that it will take considerable time to complete the process of joining the euro."

However, in another blow for supporters of a swift entry into eurozone, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, Digby Jones, is to announce on Monday that the organisation is to back away from advocating early euro membership.

'Clear policy'

Mr Digby feels the debate is "sterile" until the government embarks on a referendum campaign.

Downing Street sought to play down Mr Jones' comments, with Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman saying: "The CBI is the CBI, we are the government. We have got a very clear policy which we have enunciated very clearly."

Meanwhile the government is being criticised by Frits Bolkestein, European Commissioner for the internal market, over the UK's opposition to the proposed "withholding tax".

Mr Bolkestein told the Independent newspaper the government's opposition was "not reasonable."

But the Treasury strongly opposes the measure, arguing that it would hit the lucrative eurobond market in the City of London.