The Tory Blame Game

Who is to blame for last night’s Tory uprising on Europe? It’s more entertaining to pin the blame on everyone, rather than one person, and in this case, it’s wrong to insist that the leadership is entirely to blame for the confusing fiasco of the past week. So here are the many, many different options for pinning blame on someone for 114 Tory MPs telling the Prime Minister that they regretted his failure to introduce an EU referendum bill in the Queen’s Speech. Coffee Housers can choose their favourites.

1. Blame the leadership (Part I)

David Cameron should have had a proper strategy to deal with the ongoing demands of his backbenchers for a bill guaranteeing the 2017 referendum. Cabinet Ministers were pushing him for it to be published alongside the Queen’s Speech with an explanation that the Conservatives wanted to do this, but couldn’t. Instead, the Lib Dems claim the Prime Minister didn’t even raise the idea of legislative underpinning for the bill, and Cameron rushed out the announcement 48 hours before the vote.