It has been a fraught and ill-tempered week in Westminster. And — whether it is
the rumour that Tory backbencher Andrea Leadsom told
George Osborne to “f**k off”, or David Cameron’s dismissal of Ed Miliband as a “complete mug” — most of it has had Europe at its root.
So it is, too, with the latest news of government strife. Iain Duncan Smith, it’s reported, had a ferocious row with the Tory chief whip, Patrick McLoughlin, over the EU referendum . Apparently, he warned that, “If you ever put me in this position again, that’s it”.
As it happens, there is more on IDS’s disgruntlement in Charles Moore’s column for the latest
Spectator, out today. And Charles also reveals that Owen Paterson was left just as frustrated by Monday’s vote as the Welfare Secretary. Here, for CoffeeHousers’ benefit, is the relevant
passage:
“So power has shifted. It now accrues to those within the government who were bounced by the leadership. The revolt was bad enough for Mr Cameron, but if it had included Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson, the most Eurosceptic members of the Cabinet, it would have been pretty well uncontainable. Neither was consulted about the tactics for the vote and both were miserably unhappy about it. But both were good boys. They did not resign and they avoided making trouble in the press over the weekend. Now they have surely won the right to insist on concrete proposals from Mr Cameron about exactly which powers Britain should try to reclaim from the EU and to demand a timetable for action. Otherwise, the government will be run by Nick Clegg’s extraordinary doctrine that it would be wrong to seek national advantage at a time of EU crisis — and the longer-running coalition in British politics, usually known as the Conservative party, will fracture.”
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