David Cameron’s decision to make it clear that he is definitely not ruling out Brexit by saying that ‘people need to understand there are significant downsides’ to being outside the European Union has been greeted with derision in eurosceptic circles. Campaigners argue that the Prime Minister clearly doesn’t think he’ll get much from his renegotiation if he doesn’t think it’s worth continuing to threaten that he could possibly campaign to take Britain out of Europe in order to spook EU leaders into giving him what he wants.
But there’s also an interesting internal implication to the Prime Minister’s speech in Reykjavik, which is that effectively ruling out a Brexit makes it rather difficult for him to continue to maintain collective responsibility on the issue.
Cameron is most likely to give his ministers a free vote on the matter eventually, but it is in his interests to withhold that for as long as possible so that he doesn’t have ministers undermining him while he is still negotiating.
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