David Cameron will give ministers a free vote on EU referendum

As expected, David Cameron is to suspend collective responsibility for ministers who wish to campaign for Britain to leave the European Union. The Prime Minister will give a statement this afternoon in which he is expected to announce a free vote on the matter. Ministers will not be able to speak out until after the renegotiation has concluded, which is fair enough as it would undermine Cameron’s authority to have them campaigning for Brexit before they’ve even seen what he has brought back.

This is not a surprise – the whips had been working on this assumption for months – but it does show that the Tory leader is trying to do everything he can to keep his party together over the next year. As I wrote at the weekend, he needed to sort the free vote issue sooner rather than later. That he has done also gives further weight to the belief that the referendum will be this year.