Last week’s Budget was supposed to be boring, but is still splashed across the front pages of the newspapers this morning. It was supposed to be crafted so that no Tory MPs could raise a rumpus, yet it has led to the resignation of a Cabinet minister and the opening up of a yawning split in the Tory party. This row between the Tory leadership and those supporting Iain Duncan Smith isn’t officially about Europe, though the referendum has undermined the foundations of the party enough to make this row seriously destabilising for the leadership.
David Cameron will use his statement on the latest European Council meeting to reassert the compassionate Conservative credentials of his government, something he tried to pitch as the key theme for his second and final term as Prime Minister. The party seems to be in sufficiently angry a mood this morning that the angry responses won’t just be from the Labour benches, but Cameron’s own side.
The challenge for the Tory leader over the next few days is to try to stabilise his Cabinet and give the impression to his party that he isn’t going to slap them down with quite the same brutal approach that has been taken with Iain Duncan Smith. The challenge for Osborne is a longer-term one, which is that he must rehabilitate himself like he has never had to before, even after the trouble with the yacht and the Omnishambles Budget. For both of them, the importance of not being seen to play silly games on Europe is now enormous: one false move and the foundations of the party could crumble still further.
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