This struck me as interesting less for what Hague said than for what the Tory centre-left wanted to hear. They do not want a split. They've convinced themselves William has no desire to lead Britain out of the EU. He told them he didn't want re-negotiation of past treaties either, which is a big change from what was being spun around earlier in the year, though even now is supported by ominously little detail. His audience, though not enraptured, was relieved. Clarke and the others now have a better formed hope that they, for their part, might not need to make trouble.
What appeared to be emerging was the embryonic possibility that the Conservative party was getting ready to become, once again, a fighting force. Facing an election, the dissidents were preparing to line up silently behind the leader, if he gave them room to do so. He made a decent shot at trying to calm their fears. It still seems likely that we will hear little from Mr Clarke about the single currency, not least because the government won't be making that an issue either. The party line, once so repellent to the Clarke camp, will perhaps be maintained without much noise. The most pro-Europe Tory front-bencher, a man whose assumption of any shadow office was regarded as preposterously at odds with his known beliefs, told me exuberantly last week: "William is leading the party from as pro-Europe a position as anyone could possibly do".
The greatest impact Shaun Woodward makes by quitting is to shatter these illusions of a new Tory convergence. He asks a lot of questions that make several Tories as uncomfortable as him. If Hague can't keep a man like Woodward in the party, what does that say about its chances in the country?
For the party is indeed intolerant, at last as far as Clause 28 goes. A curl of the lip from messrs Redwood and Widdecombe, without any consideration of what the clause has done practically in the playground, was enough to get an aspect of homophobia endorsed by the shadow cabinet after only five minutes' discussion. That revealed a lot about Hague's insensitivity, just as his sacking of Woodward for disagreeing showed that he places conscience far below discipline in the list of modern Tory virtues. He has decided that, on all matters, making everyone obey the party line is the sole and axiomatic test of leadership: a fallacy which shows not strength but mulish weakness, not wisdom but terror at anyone breaking ranks.
And the party certainly is, as Woodward also complained, anti-European. Vainly thrashing about on most bread-and-butter issues, it seems to think this is the way to broaden its support. Not only a pro-Europe man like Woodward, but any political strategist not in thrall to the neo-Thatcherite politics of sectarian vengeance, could see the folly of this position. Living with that kind of leadership is, naturally, painful for a centrist Conservative. It offends not only his belief-system but his judgment about how the party can ever expect to get back to power.
As a tactic, on the other hand, party-hopping in this case seems quite self-indulgent. It looks like the operation of a man who, having decided there's no way Hague's Tories will get power, wants to try another way of getting there himself. He may be very sincerely disgusted with certain positions the Tories are taking. But are these really so different from what they were saying in 1997, and certainly in 1998? Is Clause 28 really the grand point of principle to justify crossing the floor, away from a party choc-a-bloc with gays, merely because the specific issue has been badly handled? Can Woodward seriously expect to have any ongoing role for the public good, after Labour's initial gleeful exploitation of the cross-over, when he gets, or fails to get, a safe Blairite seat?
He could easily have been part of the Tory delegation that waited on William Hague last Tuesday. They mostly think the way he does. They have, moreover, a strategy, based on some hard-headed dissembling. This is far from lovey-dovey togetherness. They were probing for points of agreement with Hague not in order to strengthen him, but to strengthen themselves if and when he is destroyed. They would like to fight an uncontentious election campaign, the better to keep their hands clean, and withhold from the right the smallest alibi for the rout that is commonly expected.
This itself could be a mistaken analysis. It may involve a period of silence that is uncongenial to the Tory pro-Europeans. They could have got the result badly wrong. Maybe Hague will do rather better, thanks to Labour abstentions and a poor showing by the Liberal Democrats, than now seems likely. It's not impossible that a hard right party, proclaiming an anti-Europeanism ever more pur et dur, will do at least well enough to secure Hague's own position, and sustain the illusion that the kind of Tory party which these Clarkeite leftists abominate has a future after all. In which case, their compliance will have sucked them under.
But they do at least have a tactic for one day reclaiming the party for the centre ground. Though this may not happen within some of their political lifetimes, it's a worthwhile objective, far more so than busting up the Tories and clambering aboard the party from which, one day, the country will stand in dire need of rescue. Personally I think, and have argued here, that Mr Clarke risks an untimely irrelevance by keeping quiet. Since he stands for something important, and everyone knows it, there's limited value in giving Mr Hague an untroubled ride towards oblivion.
But it makes more sense than jacking in the party ticket. The end-game in sight offers something a lot more useful to the values Shaun Woodward thinks are threatened than does his own despairing but shallow apostasy. He's unlikely to last long as a Blairite wunderkind. In our politics, for better or worse, floor-crossers never do. The party that got him elected, on the other hand, needs all the help it can get to rescue it, one day, from the militant death-wish. As Tony Blair has the credentials, better than anyone, to tell him.
