Could Britain quitting the ECHR persuade the Tories to stay in the EU?

David Cameron’s willingness to talk about Britain pulling out of the European Court of Human Rights while refusing to give details of what he wants back in an EU renegotiation is telling. All Cameron would say on Marr this morning about the EU renegotiation, is that he wants Britain to be exempted from ‘ever closer union’—a largely linguistic ask that, I suspect, the rest of the EU will be prepared to agree to. By contrast, he was prepared to go into far more detail about how he might change Britain’s relationship with the Strasbourg Court.

Britain no longer being rhetorically committed to ‘ever closer union’ with the rest of the EU is not going to be enough to persuade most of the Tory party to back staying in if there is a referendum.