When David Cameron spoke at the 90th anniversary party of the 1922 committee earlier this week, he used glowing terms to praise its chairman Graham Brady and urge backbenchers to ‘stick to our guns’. Anyone would think he hadn’t tried to abolish it in effect by allowing ministers to attend and vote shortly after the Coalition had formed. That the Tory leadership backed down on this, in spite of winning the vote that would have introduced the change, was well-reported at the time. But one of the key things that precipitated the climbdown has been a secret until now.
Bill Cash, one of the MPs most enraged by Cameron’s attempt to change the committee at the time, has spoken exclusively to Coffee House about the extraordinary events of the week that the voice of Tory backbenchers nearly lost its power. It was in fact a threat of court action that led the leadership to back down and allow ministers only to attend and not vote at the committee.
The change that David Cameron proposed would have had serious implications for the way the Conservatives reacted to Coalition, as giving ministers the vote would have, as James explained at the time, stifled its role as a forum for backbench opinion.
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