James Wharton, the Tory MP leading the EU referendum bill through the House of Commons, has become something of a minor celebrity in the party, with admiring young things approaching him at the Conservative conference last week as though he were a minister of Ken Clarke’s standing, not a backbencher. His performance with the legislation so far suggests that he is destined for great things, but he’s currently rather preoccupied with the attempt by one of his backbench colleagues, the even more ambitious Adam Afriyie, to sabotage the bill.
Afriyie writes in the Mail on Sunday that he is tabling an amendment to the legislation calling for a referendum on 23 October next year. He writes:
‘But why 2014? The Prime Minister says we are going to have an EU referendum in 2017. Why not just wait until then?
‘The fact is, the British people are not convinced there will be a referendum at all if we wait until after the next General Election.
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