Will David Cameron allow senior ministers to take whatever side they wish in the EU referendum? There are reportedly six Cabinet Ministers pushing for a free vote on the matter, and today Liam Fox added his voice to the calls, telling the Daily Politics that even if the Prime Minister refused an official suspension of collective responsibility, ministers would find other ways of making their views heard. He said:
‘Ultimately the legitimacy of the result will depend on whether the voters think they have heard all the arguments openly and fairly and I think any attempt by any side to restrict people’s voice in that debate will limit how people feel the legitimacy of the referendum has gone and I think that’s really important.
‘And I think that in any case, people will find a way to make their voices heard, and the idea that you can gag people during a process like the referendum given the multiple ways that we’ve just been discussing about getting information out is unrealistic.’
https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/liam-fox-discusses-cabinet-collective-responsibility-on-the-daily-politics
Fox’s point about the danger of restricting voices in the debate is indeed important and one that Downing Street should heed. I understand that most of those in government who would be charged with enforcing collective responsibility expect Cameron to grant a free vote at some point – but that the best way to do this is to allow eurosceptics to get annoyed, organise a little fight about the matter and for Downing Street to appear to retreat. ‘That way they’ll get what they want and feel as though they’ve emerged victorious from a fight too,’ explains a source.
Really, the best thing for the Prime Minister to do is to give those eurosceptics whatever they want to avoid any opportunity for them to set up a betrayal narrative about the result of the referendum. He has already been accommodating on the question of the party machinery being neutral and the question and answer options in the vote itself, which shows how conscious he is of the importance of managing the party well in order to avoid a long-term split in the Conservative ranks or a neverendum situation.
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