Brexit Tories are feeling disrespected. How awful

There are moments when one wonders whether one is seeing and hearing the same things as others. For me such a moment occurred a fortnight ago when reading The Spectator’s weekly column by our political editor, James Forsyth. James is exceptionally well plugged in to the world of Westminster, but — beyond that — a person of cool and sensitive judgment, so I read what he writes with attention.

He said this: ‘[The Prime Minister] is campaigning with no thought for the feelings of those in the party who disagree with him. It is one thing for a leader to disagree with close to half of his MPs and most of his activists, but quite another not to do it respectfully.’

And for the first time in my life I had literally no idea what James was on about.

First, then, the evidence. Except there isn’t any. Ever since the pre-campaign campaign for our EU referendum began, I’ve been listening carefully to what David Cameron has been saying and the tone in which he’s been saying it. Study his remarks. They are notable for the care he’s been taking not to be personal about leading Leave campaigners, and not to question their good faith.

I can find only one partial exception to that. Without naming names, Mr Cameron did say he had complete respect for Leave campaigners whose objections to Britain’s EU membership had been well-known and long-standing. This may be taken at face value: opposition to EU membership has a long and honourable tradition at Westminster and it is impossible not to acknowledge the sincerity and tenacity of many of the leading voices. But when Cameron added that he was not standing for re-election it was fair to guess (as some commentators did) that he had Boris Johnson in his sights.