If David Cameron hoped that his pledge of an in/out EU referendum would lead to a cessation of hostilities in the Tory party it looks as if he was sorely mistaken. Little more than a week after Cameron’s speech, Conservative MPs are reacquiring their taste for regicide. The Guardian reports that the Tories are prepared to force a vote of no confidence in the PM unless the party’s poll ratings improve by the summer of 2014. One minister is quoted as saying:
This is not necessarily about waiting until 2015 and seeing if David Cameron loses. This is about being ready for the moment when the party realises that Cameron is not a winner.
If this sounds outlandish, it’s worth remembering that just 46 MPs – 15 per cent of the Conservative parliamentary party – are required to write to the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Graham Brady, to trigger an automatic confidence vote.
One MP said: “There is a core of MPs that is determined to get rid of Cameron right now. They think he lost the last election, they think he cannot win the next election and maybe doesn’t even want to win the election. They think he just likes the idea of being a coalition prime minister.
“While this group are wrong to think of a move now, there would be support for a contest if there is no movement for the party by 2014. There would be no problem in drumming up 46 letters to Graham Brady at that point. I could name them. I would support it.”
Cameron’s cause is not helped by the fact that any bounce from his speech appears to have already dissipated. Labour’s lead fell to just six in the weekend polls but it had risen to nine by the middle of the week and today it stands at 12, back at the level seen before Cameron’s referendum pledge.
But it’s not just the PM that MPs have in their sights. The Daily Mail reports that the rebels are prepared to demand the removal of George Osborne as Chancellor if the economy fails to show signs of recovery by the time of the local elections. “The idea is that you deliver an ultimatum to the PM telling him to get rid of George,” one MP is quoted as saying.
Another adds: “You wouldn’t get 80 people supporting Adam Afriyie for leader but you might get 80 or 100 people saying get rid of George.”
But it is hard to see Cameron acquiescing to this demand. Unusually for a Prime Minister and Chancellor, Cameron and Osborne are close friends, with Osborne godfather to Cameron’s son, Elwen. Tory MPs, however, will remind the Prime Minister of his response when asked back in 2010 if he could ever sack Osborne.
Yes. He is a good friend, but we’ve has that conversation a number of times over the past four years.
To be fair to George he said ‘If ever you want to move me to another job, it is your decision and it is your right’.
The assumption that Osborne and Cameron rise and fall together most likely remains correct. But if the sacrifice of Osborne is the price for saving his leadership, the PM may yet be forced to act.
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