Will David Cameron really consider staying on as Prime Minister for the 2020 election as well? Ever since the Sun on Sunday reported that some of the Tory leader’s colleagues were agitating for him to continue, there has been feverish speculation about whether he will. Those MPs in favour of a longer reign from Cameron claim that he made his commitment to go before the next election while chopping vegetables in his kitchen and that he wasn’t really thinking. But he has reiterated that commitment since the election, and so clearly doesn’t think it was a mistake worth correcting.
But the chatter about the PM going ‘on and on’, as he puts it, does raise a question that Cameron will have to answer at some point, which is his departure date. Most people believe he will stay until the EU referendum is out of the way – which could be next year if he gets what he wants from EU leaders earlier than he thinks (which looks a bit less likely today) or in 2017 if things prove trickier.
But a number of senior Tories have suggested to me that it would be better for Cameron to stay around for another year after the referendum to ensure that his party stays united. Even though few currently expect there to be a serious split on Europe, it’s still too far away from the vote to be really confident, and the Scottish referendum shows that the sense of betrayal that the losing side feels after the result can do funny, powerful things to politics. So Cameron might want to say that he will stay on to keep the party going, those MPs reason, before handing it over in good condition to whoever is elected his successor in 2019. This means, one Cabinet Minister reasons, that ‘the new leader will still be enjoying a honeymoon period when the election comes’.
But all of this assumes that Cameron will have a good time as Prime Minister for however long he does plan to stay. If he doesn’t name a departure date and finds himself going through a tricky patch with poor economic news or party rebellions on a range of policies, then he will find that colleagues start demanding he set a deadline for his leadership.
So far, though, his commitment to going before the election has rather helped his leadership as it means that ambitious colleagues can campaign rather openly without it being seen as a threat to Cameron’s own authority. Remember the days when every comment from Boris Johnson was seen as an attempt by the Mayor to undermine Cameron? Now his actions are interpreted purely in the light of what they mean for his rivalry with George Osborne and, to a lesser extent, Theresa May. Cameron has taken himself out of the picture. But that doesn’t mean he won’t find other challenges to his authority over the next few years.
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