ANALYSIS
LAST night’s vote will do nothing to end the brutal 30-year Tory party civil war over Europe.
At best, it delays the leadership showdown between Brexiteers and Remainers.
Many MPs believe that moment, when it comes, could finally bring a catastrophic split. A former minister said recently: “The party is falling apart around our ears.”
Pro-Brussels Tories warn they cannot remain in a party led by a Brexiteer such as Boris Johnson.
But Conservatives have been divided over membership since Harold Macmillan failed to take us into the bloc in the 1950s.
The issue turned truly toxic in the wake of the ousting of the increasingly Eurosceptic Margaret Thatcher by Europhile ministers led by Kenneth Clarke.
Veterans recall damage from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, leaving swathes of aspirational Tory voters in mortgage negative equity and many losing their homes.
David Cameron pledged to stop Tories “banging on about Europe” but the EU became his leadership’s most divisive issue.
A referendum was meant to deal with the matter for ever. “It is time to settle this European question,” he said. Some hope, Dave.
The vote split of 52-48 created new political allegiances among Leavers and Remainers and the Left-Right divide was rendered unrepresentative at a stroke.
Both fail to adapt to an era when globalisation, immigration and national identity are key to voting rather than wealth and poverty or capital and labour.
Repeal of the Corn Laws by Tory PM Robert Peel in 1846 shattered the party for decades but today’s predicament has more in common with the 1920s and 1930s and the collapse of the Liberal Party – a coalition of free traders, radicals, socialists and non-conformists that became too big and broke up.
In the same way, it is difficult to see Europhiles, Thatcherite free marketeers, middle-of-the-road pragmatists and nation-state patriots under the same blue umbrella for ever.
Last night’s vote was another flash point in the Tory civil war. There is no sign of any peace process beginning anytime soon.