The Tory MPs who are unhappy with Number 10’s offer of a draft EU referendum bill have been making the most noise this morning, but there have been some interesting shifts in position from some hardline eurosceptics in the past few hours. Douglas Carswell, who is about as independently-minded as you can get, has come out all guns blazing in favour of the Prime Minister’s plan. He writes on his blog:
‘For several years, I have been agitating for the Prime Minister to offer an In / Out referendum. He’s now offering one. Cameron deserves much more credit for being the first Prime Minister in a generation to offer us the chance to vote to quit the EU. Not even Mrs Thatcher came anywhere close!
‘So, I can tick that off my list.
‘I have also been pressing for the legislation to be enacted in this Parliament. Yesterday the government published the EU referendum Bill. To be sure, the Bill cannot be brought in in government time without Mr Clegg’s say so. But the chance to engineer a vote on it is now ours for the making.
‘Again, tick.’
He then urges colleagues to put their names in for the Private Member’s Bill ballot, adding that ‘the whips will be helpful’. The angels in Number 10 might be rejoicing over one sinner who repenteth, as they’re currently furious with the reaction of many of Carswell’s other colleagues, who are arguing that the leadership still needs to support tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech amendment. But other Tory MPs may well share Carswell’s way of thinking. A number of them feel they don’t want to push the leadership too far on the European issue, just as some were keen to give them the benefit of the doubt over press regulation and gay marriage.
But the main noise that the leadership is hearing is one of rejection and a demand for the leadership to go further on Europe. And that is causing considerable exasperation in Downing Street.
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