Tory MPs have been buzzing today about Mark Pritchard’s announcement that he would be supporting the campaign for Britain to remain in the European Union. The well-known eurosceptic MP wrote a significant piece for the Sunday Times yesterday setting out his reasons for becoming a reluctant Inner, which include the risk of weakening Nato, and an end to ‘Britain’s political and diplomatic counterbalance to France and Germany’s strategic clumsiness’.
What’s interesting about Pritchard’s intervention is that he had actually made up his mind on the matter in March 2015, and had told his staff and Downing Street that he would be backing the Remain campaign then.
Most of his colleagues have been supportive of his decision, but a couple, such as Michael Fabricant, have made digs suggesting that the article was written in response to some sort of job offer. Fabricant sent a rather snide tweet yesterday saying ‘Brilliant whips’ operation identifying the discarded and the never regarded to support EU membership in return for hope of promotion! #PPS’. In response to this, Pritchard says ‘there was no coercion or incentive from Downing Street’, and that he had made up his mind alone. Given how independently-minded Pritchard was in the last Parliament, it would be out of character for him to suddenly pen a piece in favour of the government position.
Philip Cowley, Tim Bale and Anand Menon report on Coffee House today that 70 per cent of Tory MPs who they surveyed said they had either not decided how to vote in the referendum, or that their vote will be contingent on David Cameron’s renegotiation. Some may be waiting to see which campaign seems to have the momentum, and currently the ‘Leave’ camp (though camp sounds as though its members are able to spend time near one another, which is not true) is not making itself a particularly attractive prospect for any wavering eurosceptic who is wondering whether they too are a reluctant inner. It may be an easier decision for backbench MPs, but some ambitious Cabinet ministers will be wondering whether it is worth hitching themselves to a campaign that fails badly. Currently the ‘Leave’ campaigns are giving the impression that they could sabotage their own chances – and fail to attract natural eurosceptics to their cause.
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