Keeping Britain in the EU will be easier than keeping the Tories united on the issue

Privately, senior Tories admit that winning the EU referendum, by which they mean securing a vote to stay in on Cameron’s new terms, is the easy part. The more difficult challenge, they admit, will be keeping the Tory party from splitting over the issue. But this realisation doesn’t seem to be informing how the government is actually approaching the referendum hence the row over the attempt to lift the normal purdah restrictions for the campaign itself.

Cameron should be bending over backwards to ensure that the whole process is seen as ‘fair’ and to ensure that everyone on the Tory  bench has to accept the result. For as one senior backbencher warns, ‘If the thing doesn’t appear fair, people aren’t going to accept it’.

Considering all this, Cameron would be well advised to accept normal purdah restrictions for the campaign itself. This would deny Outers in the party a chance to cry foul about an In vote.