Escalation of Tory division over Europe

[LeftishBrit]

...Just now, the Tories are in more of a mood than they've been since the chaotic days of the Major administration, and possibly since 1990, the year the party hacked down Margaret Thatcher in an orgy of political regicide prompted, naturally, by DNA-deep divisions over Europe.

A surely impossible demand from any senior Conservative for David Cameron to accept his manifesto pledge to reduce net migration into the UK to the tens of thousands is valueless on the ground it's "corrosive of public trust" - in other words because no-one believes it - would be embarrassing enough if delivered in private.

Published in an open letter by Michael Gove, and Boris Johnson (Gisela Stuart's a co-signatory, but Labour's internal debate is another story) it amounts to an escalation of a battle that now defies all established principles of government discipline and collective responsibility...


So bitter has the conflict become, so taut the tension between the rival factions, that angry Eurosceptic Tories talk privately of challenging the prime minister's position even if Britain votes to stay inside the European Union...

(More about the Tory circular firing squad at link):


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/36407446

[LeftishBrit]

1. (From Torygraph): Tory MP Andrew Bridgen says David Cameron finished as party leader

senior Conservative MP has broken ranks for the first time to declare that David Cameron is “finished” as Tory leader and will have to be replaced after the European Union referendum.

In a dramatic intervention, Andrew Bridgen said Mr Cameron had “infuriated” his own MPs and grassroots members with his “Project Fear” campaign to keep Britain in the EU and would face a leadership challenge, which could come as soon as next month.

Mr Bridgen, who is chairman of a Commons select committee, is the first MP publicly to warn Mr Cameron that he will have to resign or face a plot to oust him amid growing anger in the Tory party over the Prime Minister’s Remain campaign.

“David Cameron has placed himself front and centre of a disingenuous Remain campaign, setting himself at odds with half of the Parliamentary Party and 70 per cent of our members and activists on the most important issue facing our Country in a generation,” Mr Bridgen said. “Whatever the result, I believe his position will be untenable.”


http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/tory-mp-andrew-bridgen-says-david-cameron-is-finished-as-party-leader/ar-BBtB6zx?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=iehp

(I must say I'd never heard of Andrew Bridgen before...)

[Bad Dog]

2. I'd not either.

He may well have been the amorphous back bencher talking of a challenge on BBC News earlier, but I really wasn't paying much attention.

[Ironing Man]

3. Liam Fox...

LF poo-poo'd the idea of a post-ref challenge to Cameron, and he's both no friend of the PM and a proper life-long outer...

Chris Grayling did the same - he specifically denied that there were 50 Tory MP's ready to go for a no confidence vote.

personally i don't doubt that there are Tory MP's so enraged by Cameron, and probably not previous fans of him, who want to pull the handle, but do i believe there are 50 Tory MP's who, assuming Reman wins, will be so obsessed by bitterness that they will risk a GE with the Tories imploding and Labour, if not level pegging, then not imploding? no, i don't.

on a much wider point, not purely about the Tories, but this shows the danger of political parties in hock to their activists rather than a much wider pool of more casual supporters - when cranks, obsessives and swivell-eyed loons sit on the constituancy selection panels, they tend to select cranks, obsessives and swivel-eyed loons.

if anyone is thinking that this could be an opportunity for Labour to sneak in a win, i'd be more cautious - from conversations i've had with members from other constituancies across the midlands and south, which is where Labour needs to win seats in order to stand a hope in hell of even getting to coalition territory - the party is several years away from being in a position to fight a GE. not just no candidates selected, but the only possibles at the moment are people that half the party wouldn't vote for. we, for example, have almost no party infrastructure, active party members in the low-tens, and a civil war in the CLP. this, again, in a seat that Labour have lost to an independant because it wasn't good enough on the NHS...

in the event of a snap election, i think Labour would do well in the 'traditional' Labour constituancies in the north and north midlands - in the target seats in the south and south and west midlands i think it would do no better than in 2015, and in one or two seats in West Mids, Dudley, Sandwell, Oldbury area, i wouldn't fall off my seat if UKIP got a win. i see Labours actual vote going up in Scotland, but i don't see it delivering more than a tiny handfull of seats.