Everyone is expecting the Tory party to split over Europe in the coming referendum, largely because it has happened so often before. To the untrained eye, however, the divide is still tricky to spot. Relatively few MPs, and no government ministers, are yet committed to campaigning for a vote to leave.
Conservative Kremlinologists discerned the first signs of the faultline in the differing emphases of the platform speeches of David Cameron on the one hand, and Theresa May and Boris Johnson on the other. Certainly, the PM’s line about a country that was “strong in Europe” sounded like a trial run of his pitch for the “remain” campaign, even though he maintains that he has “ruled nothing out”. To EU policy wonks, the mayor of London’s line on sovereignty – “it is about who decides” – sounded suspiciously incompatible with the established primacy of EU over national law. Likewise, the home secretary’s speech demanded “an immigration system that allows us to control who comes to our country” – an immigration system, in other words, that offends the sacrosanct EU principle of free movement.
But neither May nor Johnson went over the edge by criticising Cameron. Indeed, both hail his efforts at renegotiation, even as they demand impossible things from it. Not only does this avoid an immediate bust-up, it also gives these aspiring prime ministers a way out if, in the end, they decide it’s too risky to side with the “outers”.
To get a sense of where more committed and less constrained Eurosceptics were coming from, I wandered out on to the fringe of the conference, initially without much luck. When I arrived at an event organised by Conservatives for Britain, the ginger group demanding “fundamental changes” in Europe which has the backing of 115 MPs, I was immediately shown the door by G4S staff. The large marquee was, they said, already at “twice the legal capacity”. I had more luck at a late-night drinks reception where the star turn was the former cabinet minister and Thatcher protege Liam Fox. He whipped the young crowd into a fervour by denouncing Russia, demanding tax cuts and hailing the glories of the Conservatives governing solo again.
When he turned to Europe, though, his rhetoric sounded a bit cooler. He heaped praise on Cameron, called for Tory unity and insisted that in the renegotiations he really wasn’t asking for much. Just the same freedom for Britain, he said, as New Zealand, Canada and (I think) Japan had in writing their own laws. The same freedom, in other words, as any country outside the EU.
Here was the same trick that Johnson and May were playing on the stage being pushed to new heights – wishing the renegotiations well while dooming them with unrealistic demands. And I got to see just how unrealistic when, at the end of his speech, I had a little chat with Fox himself. I listened alongside a chatty young Scottish Conservative from Stirling who wandered over to meet him with me, and so it is possible Fox may have simply assumed that I was another activist.
The three of us spoke for a minute about one great Fox theme, the new cold war with Russia, and I chipped in that I was interested in what he’d said on Europe. It sounded as if he would have to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act (the law which initially took Britain into the EU). He replied that he wanted to do more than that, by undoing “article 1 of the Treaty of Rome”, which – looking at the treaty – strikes me less as a wish for a Brexit than for the whole EU to cease to exist. I gently inquired how likely it would be that the prime minister would get the sort of changes he was talking about – unlikely he said, “very unlikely”, just remembering to add the rider that it was “not impossible”. And finally I asked how many Conservative MPs would be plumping to leave if the deal felt short, and, unhesitating, he ventured “upward of 200”, so about two-thirds of the total.
Of course it’s no surprise to learn that the deeply Thatcherite Fox is a Eurosceptic, but – even if we allow for a little bravado – his confidence in how many MPs share his views is instructive. So, too, was his outward emollience towards the prime minister, and his simultaneous embrace of impossible demands that will doom him. The Eurosceptics are polite and disciplined for the moment, but they are simply biding their time. The expected Tory war will be upon us soon enough.
