Iain Duncan Smith’s attack on the ‘In’ campaign today doesn’t just show us how febrile the referendum campaign is going to be for the next few months. It also shows us that ministers like the Work and Pensions Secretary are so peeved with the way the Prime Minister and others are conducting the campaign that they want to threaten Tory party unity after the referendum, whatever the result. IDS writes in the Mail today:
‘The acrimonious manner in which all this has been conducted is troubling, and will I fear have consequences long beyond June 23. After all, such desperate and unsubstantiated claims are now being made that they begin to damage the very integrity of those who make them in the eyes of the public.’
He does not point the finger directly at David Cameron, but his implication is clear: if Remain continues with its ‘highly questionable dossiers’ that threaten ‘almost biblical consequences’, then those Conservatives in that campaign cannot count on the support of the Outers when the referendum is done and dusted.
The thing is, Duncan Smith will know that sowing doubt in voters’ minds about Brexit and making them worry about the country’s security is the best tactic that is available to the Inners. They are unlikely, after a Scottish referendum campaign that did result in a ‘No’ vote and a general election campaign that did result in a Tory majority, to think that negative campaigning isn’t all it’s cracked up to be after all. And so the Work and Pensions Secretary is telling his opponents to stop doing the very thing he knows they won’t.
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