A lot to ask

David Cameron is now facing the biggest challenge of his leadership: how to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU without destroying his party. His dilemma mirrors the situation of Harold Wilson 40 years ago this month. So far, the old Labour man looks the better strategist.

Wilson, who had a majority of three, avoided mass resignations from his cabinet by suspending the convention that members of the government must back its entire programme in public. Of his 23 cabinet ministers, seven joined the campaign for Britain to leave the EU. They didn’t win the argument — but they ensured that the question was properly debated, and settled for many years afterwards.

David Cameron need only have followed that example. Instead, he began the week threatening Eurosceptics with the sack unless they agreed to support the government’s case for a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum — a position he hurriedly abandoned as the dissent it would create became clear.

With this flip-flop, the Prime Minister has not merely risked party discipline. He has also undermined his negotiating position in Europe. It has been clear since his passionate speech at Bloomberg’s offices in London two years ago, when he first promised this referendum, that he wanted Britain to remain part of a reformed Europe. Yet there remained the implicit threat that if he didn’t get his way in the renegotiation, he would recommend that the country vote to leave.

Just how seriously the EU’s leaders took this threat became clear within hours of the Conservatives’ outright general election victory. Having previously said there could not possibly be any changes to EU treaties until 2019, Jean-Claude Juncker suddenly declared, ‘I stand ready to work with you to strike a fair deal for the United Kingdom.