The harsh fact for the Tories is that parties that appear divided get punished by the voters
Welcome to a week that looks set to be dominated by Tory divisions on Europe.Familiar? goo.gl/wOAWX twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st…
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 13, 2013
The Indy on Sunday’s John Rentoul summed this up well in an excellent blog yesterday:-
“That’s the news list gone for most of the week, as the vote on the symbolic Eurosceptic amendment in the Commons will wipe out most else, not least because of the unfamiliarity of a whipped abstention by government ministers.
What are the Tories thinking of….? Too many of them believe in withdrawing from the EU, I conclude, and care passionately about it. That’s not ignoble. I have argued before that the case for and against EU membership is finely balanced. But their behaviour is astonishingly counterproductive.”
The best way for the referendum-backers to get what they desire is to do everything possible to ensure that Cameron leads his party to an overall majority at GE2015.
What is happening this week will have the opposite effect.
Ed Miliband’s luck continues.
Mike Smithson
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