Something quite curious is going to happen in the Commons this afternoon. David Cameron is encouraging his party to bang on about Europe. He has called a general debate, with the motion ‘that this House has considered the matter of Europe’, and it promises to be rather strange.
The strangest thing is that a month ago, David Cameron would never have dreamed of tabling this sort of debate: his camp were busy in October trying to quell an uprising of backbenchers over the EU Budget. But after the speech that delighted even Mrs Bone last week, Cameron finally doesn’t have to wait for a backbencher to pounce on him with entreaties on referenda and renegotiations: he’s got nothing to hide now.
In the press gallery, we’ve grown used to the slightly mournful look on the face of a Tory backbencher who has, once again, pressed the Prime Minister on the matter of Europe, only to get an answer that gives them no more detail than that Cameron does believe in the EU.
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