Fallon slapped down over EU campaign comments

After Michael Fallon suggested that the Conservative party could campaign for the UK to leave the EU if a renegotiation proved unsuccessful, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman was today asked about David Cameron’s view on this. He said:

‘The position hasn’t changed. The Prime Minister is confident of success.’

The Prime Minister’s position is that he will definitely get the changes he wants and therefore he knows already that he will campaign to stay in the European Union in 2017. So the possibility that the party might have to campaign to stay out is being read in some quarters as a suggestion that Fallon and other ministers don’t share his confidence and don’t think he’ll get the renegotiation result he wants.

This Number 10 slap-down is nothing to the slap-down issued by a Commons tea room source. That exasperated source tells Mr Steerpike:

‘Michael Fallon is showing more leg on Europe than a drunken Hollywood dancer auditioning for the Moulin Rouge.