What the Tories will say after the Irish vote

That the Irish referendum result will be announced on Saturday afternoon is not, to put it mildly, ideal for the Tories. If as expected the Irish vote yes, it will be almost certain that the Lisbon treaty will be ratified by the time of the next election (the Czech delay is not expected to last much past December). This raises the question of what the Tories’ deliberately ambiguous commitment not to let matters rest there means.

The Tories are keen for this question not to dominate the week. So, expect Cameron and Hague to do a lot of media on Saturday evening and Sunday in an attempt to deal with this issue. Word is that they will stress that the Czech challenge still might hold things up long enough and say that they won’t get into hypotheticals. Whether this will be enough to satisfy either the media or the more committed Euro-sceptics in the party remains to be seen.