In a firecracker of an interview on the Andrew Marr Show, Michael Gove confirmed that if an EU referendum was held today he would vote out. But he followed this by saying to James Landale that he backed the Prime Minister’s plans to renegotiate and hoped that a satisfactory form of membership could be agreed.
Significantly, Gove indicated that David Cameron would set out the Conservative ‘negotiating platform’ before the next election. This has been a key demand of Euro-sceptic Conservatives but one that Cameron has resisted. He is reluctant to provide anything akin to a renegotiation scorecard.
Gove’s intervention changes the terms of debate. It means that every Conservative Cabinet Minister is going to be asked what way they would vote if the referendum was held today—one Cabinet Minister estimates that nine people around the Cabinet table share Gove’s position.
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