Cameron will find it hard to forgive this last-minute decision
UNTIL now, David Cameron had been very lucky in his enemies: David Davis, Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband and then Jeremy Corbyn.
But last night, the quality of his opposition in the EU referendum campaign rose rather substantially.
He now finds himself arguing against not only against Michael Gove, the person he turns to when he’s short of killer lines, but against Boris Johnson, perhaps the single most popular figure in the Conservative Party.
The Mayor gives his reasons on page 18, but he could easily have written a piece arriving at the opposite conclusion.
He is a committed Europhile, perhaps the only senior Tory able to recite the French national anthem from the top of his head.
As he put it in this newspaper last week, Britain needs to be engaged in the affairs of its neighbours – and they need us. Against this, one must weigh issues like justice, sovereignty – and the possibility of a 2016 Tory leadership election.
This is a gamble that could either see Boris in the wilderness, or writing the next set of No 10 Christmas cards.
Should David Cameron lose the referendum, he will probably have to resign as Prime Minister given how much of his personal authority is on the line. And who would succeed him?
Not George Osborne, who urged the Prime Minister to hold an early vote.
The leadership race will be decided by Conservative Party members, who are expected to back Out by a margin of three-toone. Michael Gove has given intellectual credibility to the Out campaign, making it impossible for Cameron to caricature it a cry of pain from backward-looking politicians. Boris has brought something else: voter appeal.
And his is the politics of optimism, which might prove potent against an “In” campaign relying more than it should on scaremongering and the denigration of opponents.
Already, there are signs of the Cameron operation closing ranks against Boris. Downing Street has a semi-official vengeance policy: ministers with a longstanding opposition to the EU will be forgiven for backing Out.
The implication is that there will be no forgiveness for Boris, who has waited until now to declare his support for Brexit.
“The last thing I wanted was to go against David Cameron,” said Boris yesterday.
Quite true: what he wants is to come after him – and he is, as of last night, the bookmakers’ favourite to do just that.
‘This gamble could either see Boris in the wilderness, or writing the next set of No 10 Christmas cards’