Tory unity after the referendum is looking increasingly difficult

One of the big questions about the EU referendum campaign is whether the Tory leadership is running its campaign in such a way as to make it impossible to stitch the party back together again after the result on 23 June. The Prime Minister’s colleagues concerned with party management who work in Number 10 and the whips’ office are certainly very agitated about the mood in the party, with a number of pro-Brexit ministers appearing to conclude that they have burned their bridges irreparably. This has led their colleagues to worry that there will be a large group of ministers and backbenchers after a ‘Remain’ vote who still try to move against the Prime Minister. But most estimates still put this group at around 30, rather than the 50 needed to trigger a leadership challenge.

But why is the Prime Minister throwing so much at the campaign in a way that has upset so many of his own colleagues? One answer is that of course Cameron and his government colleagues would campaign as hard as they possibly could to prevent something from happening that they believe will damage the country. But another is that Cameron thinks a Brexit would damage his party forever, too. He thinks that the right of the party will take over and will reverse all the changes he has made to it, and damage the reforms he has tried to bring in as Prime Minister. So it’s not just about the country, but the Conservative party as well.

One way to reunite the party after a Remain vote is to carry out a ‘reconciliation reshuffle’ – though as I wrote last week, part of that reshuffle strategy seems to be to keep the new intake of Tory MPs out of jobs for a bit longer so that they don’t start bickering amongst themselves about who has been promoted and who hasn’t. But another would surely be to keep key ministers such as Michael Gove on side, something that might be rather more difficult when briefings such as this one appear in the Sunday newspapers. Gove is a popular figure on both sides of the party, with few enemies. He would be an ideal person for the Prime Minister to deploy as someone who beckons wounded fellow eurosceptics back into the fold after the vote. Instead, there seems to be some attempt to wound him, which won’t make things any easier in late June.