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On the day that David Cameron delivered his Bloomberg speech, the 2013 address in which he committed himself to a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, I asked a close ally of his how he would avoid splitting the Tory party over the issue, given that even quiet ‘outers’ might feel obliged to vote to leave. The ally paused before replying: ‘That would be a good problem to have, as it would mean we had won the election.’
That ‘good problem’ is now here. The Tory leadership is currently involved in a no-holds-barred campaign to limit the number of MPs who speak for ‘out’. An extraordinary amount of emotional energy is being spent to stop Justice Secretary Michael Gove backing ‘out’.
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