Number 10 has got quite the job to do over the next few days if it is to get backbenchers ready for David Cameron’s EU speech on Friday. Tory MPs are now obviously in a high state of excitement, but their expectations will inevitably be disappointed to some degree.
Some are already expressing fears about this, including the MP leading calls in parliament for a referendum. John Baron, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for an EU referendum, tells me that he is worried the ‘mood music’ in Europe isn’t quite as positive about renegotiation as the Prime Minister might hope. He says:
‘The chance of repatriating powers, I think they are slim: but I wish him well. I do wish him well because I think that we need to repatriate powers back to the UK, but the mood music is very different to what the Prime Minister is saying. They are not sympathetic to the idea of any states repatriating powers; if anything, the direction of travel is the other way.’
Baron also co-ordinated a letter signed by more than 100 Tory backbenchers calling for legislation in this parliament for a referendum in the next.
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