What the commentators said
“I don’t want to stab the Prime Minster in the back – I want to stab him in the front so I can see the expression on his face.” This quote from an anonymous Tory MP shows just what the PM will be up against in the event of a Remain vote, said Bagehot in The Economist. He’d need continued support from the pro-europe, bipartisan coalition now campaigning alongside him. Let’s hope he gets that far, said Ian Birrell in The Guardian. There’s a danger these “blue-onblue battles” will tempt Labour voters to back Brexit to oust him, or “encourage undecided voters to stay at home rather than bother intruding on a Tory family row”.
The Europe campaign has all become “depressingly personal”, said Toby Helm in The Observer. Samantha Cameron and Gove’s wife, Sarah Vine, have apparently fallen out over it; the PM’S old policy guru and close friend Steve Hilton has identified Cameron as a closet “outer”, only for the PM to deny it; Iain Duncan Smith has likewise accused the Business Secretary, Sajid Javid, of betraying his true, anti-eu beliefs. “The entire tribe is riven.” Whatever happens on 23 June, it’s going to be very hard to heal these divisions. Many Tory MPS believe Cameron’s life may actually be easier if he loses – and they “could be right”.
Some in the Brexit camp are preparing to lose “with dignity and honour”, said Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. Many others just can’t wait for the whole thing to be over. But if Britain does vote to remain, there is a band of “Brexit jihadis” who will not take it well and who will do whatever they can to wreak vengeance for what they’ll regard as a rigged contest. And given the Government’s slender majority, even a small number of such malcontents will be in a position to “derail its entire agenda”. We don’t need a “crystal ball” to know what the consequences of that would be for the Tory party, said Andrew Mitchell MP on Conservativehome.com. The same thing happened in 1992, “and it was 23 years before we next won an election”. Tory MPS who feel tempted once again to form a “circular firing squad” over Europe “should go and lie down in a darkened room until the feeling passes”.