Tory MPs defy Cameron and pledge to vote for EU exit
Up to 100 Tory backbenchers ready to promise Brexit vote in order to stop Ukip taking their seats
Tory MPs return to Westminster for the first time in more than a month with just one thing on their minds.
Forget David Cameron's much-trailed statement on new anti-terror laws (which appear to be unravelling before they are announced this afternoon). Forget the threat of war in the Ukraine. What is really focusing Tory backbenchers’ minds is the threat to their own seats from Nigel Farage's resurgent Ukip.
Following yesterday’s release of a Survation poll showing Douglas Carswell is heading for a landslide victory in Clacton after defecting from the Tories to Ukip, The Independent is now reporting that up to 100 Tory MPs are ready to commit themselves in their personal manifestos at the next general election to voting for Britain to leave the EU – ‘Brexit’ - just as Ukip wants.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Independent’s political editor, Andrew Grice, says this amounts to a vote of No Confidence in Cameron's hopes of negotiating a better European deal for Britain before an in/out referendum in 2017.
The real importance of this story, however, is that such pledges could pave the way for an electoral pact at local level with Ukip. As The Mole reported on Friday, David Cameron is dead set against such a pact. The way things are going, he could be powerless to stop it.
Ukip will be in the position where it can challenge any Tory MP to say whether he or she will sign up to the pledge to vote for Brexit. If the Tory agrees, Ukip won’t stand against them. If the Tory refuses, Ukip will put up a candidate and risk splitting the right-of-centre vote. In some seats, this could result in a Labour victory.
Of course, such a pact won’t be welcomed by those Ukip candidates who will be required to step aside.
But they will have to lump it. Nigel Farage’s objective is to seize a handful of seats in the general election, enough to form a power-sharing wedge in a hung parliament. He would rather concentrate on winnable seats than spread the Ukip effort too thinly. If some Ukip candidates get their toes trodden on, that will be a small price to pay.
Right on cue, the Tory grassroots website ConservativeHome, financed by Lord Ashcroft, has today produced its own wish list of policies for the 2015 general election – and it includes a pledge to restore British control over its own borders. Quite simply, such a pledge cannot be fulfilled without Britain leaving the EU, because Jean Claude-Juncker, the incoming EU Commission president, has made it clear to David Cameron that the free movement of people across Europe is non-negotiable.
In the meantime, Cameron will update MPs today on his talks with the EU Council at the weekend. He has come back with all sorts of claims that he is on track for getting what he wants in future negotiations because Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, has been named as the new president of the Council of Ministers – and Tusk is a man Cameron sees as an ally.
The Sunday Telegraph headlined the story of Tusk’s appointment as ‘Victory in EU for Cameron’, which will be regarded by the 100 Tory rebels as a bit premature to say the least.
There is some good news for Cameron today – and that’s that Carswell’s defection does not appear to have opened the floodgates as had been predicted.
But as Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, said this morning, while Tory leaders "are not seeing a great trail of Tory MPs joining Ukip … they are seeing every other sign of the deep anxiety in the Tory Party about their fate at the next election".
Most telling of all, said Robinson, is the announcement by little-known Tory MP Chris Kelly that he is not going to contest the next election. Kelly won the super marginal seat of Dudley South with a majority of 3,856 at the 2010 election.
As Mike Smithson at Political Betting points out, this makes him the eighth first-time Tory MP who entered the Commons in 2010 to give up Westminster politics after only one five-year term. This is bad news for Tory HQ because “one of the electoral dynamics that we have seen is that first-time incumbents do better than the national average for their parties when they seek to retain their seats for the first time”.
Of course, Cameron could always adopt the blustering approach to would-be deserters of Sir Nicholas Soames, grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, who has attacked Carswell for "rank disloyalty to a party that gave him a place in Parliament". Yes, but… A leader in the Daily Mail today points out that Sir Nicholas’s grandfather crossed the floor not once but twice.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Global court issues arrest warrant for Netanyahu
Speed Read The International Criminal Court issued warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who stand accused of war crimes
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Gaetz bows out, Trump pivots to Pam Bondi
Speed Read Gaetz withdrew from attorney generation consideration, making way for longtime Trump loyalist Pam Bondi
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
'The double standards don't trouble the critics'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
John Prescott: was he Labour's last link to the working class?
Today's Big Quesiton 'A total one-off': tributes have poured in for the former deputy PM and trade unionist
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Last hopes for justice for UK's nuclear test veterans
Under the Radar Thousands of ex-service personnel say their lives have been blighted by aggressive cancers and genetic mutations
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
Will Donald Trump wreck the Brexit deal?
Today's Big Question President-elect's victory could help UK's reset with the EU, but a free-trade agreement with the US to dodge his threatened tariffs could hinder it
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
What is the next Tory leader up against?
Today's Big Question Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick will have to unify warring factions and win back disillusioned voters – without alienating the centre ground
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
What is Lammy hoping to achieve in China?
Today's Big Question Foreign secretary heads to Beijing as Labour seeks cooperation on global challenges and courts opportunities for trade and investment
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Is Britain about to 'boil over'?
Today's Big Question A message shared across far-right groups listed more than 30 potential targets for violence in the UK today
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
UK's Starmer slams 'far-right thuggery' at riots
Speed Read The anti-immigrant violence was spurred by false rumors that the suspect in the Southport knife attack was an immigrant
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?
Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published