History shows that success could still be Cameron’s downfall

It is said that the figure in Conservative history whom David Cameron most admires is Sir Robert Peel. Given the Prime Minister’s difficulties over the European referendum, he may regret hailing a leader who was forced to quit over a split that left his party unable to form a majority government for 30 years.

Conservatives take pride in being the oldest and most successful party in British history, but their story is fraught with regicide and schism. If Labour always grapples with the difference between socialist idealism and practice, Conservatives struggle with how our nation-state should respond to external pressures.

This is the division between Conservative protectionists and free traders in the 19th century, between advocates of imperial preference and economic liberals in the early 20th, and between campaigners for Leave and Remain today.

In the 1840s, after the Irish Famine (an issue not so dissimilar in magnitude and character to today’s migrant crisis), Peel pushed through the repeal of the Corn Laws, which had imposed tariffs on imported grain. He faced opposition from his own MPs, representing the landowners of the Tory shires, and was forced to rely on Whigs and Radicals to get it through Parliament. He won his battle, but his party forced him to resign.

Is Mr Cameron a modernday Peel, whose desire to settle the European question will ultimately be his downfall? Perhaps Boris Johnson will be a contemporary Disraeli – he played a significant role in defeating Peel, but later adopted free trade and was committed to rebuilding the party he had helped to split.

Tempting as it is to push the historical comparison, it is not clear that the Brexiteers have much in common with 19th-century protectionists, especially when many say they are on the side of freer trade and against EU protectionism.

The reason Mr Johnson’s support for Leave poses such a problem for Mr Cameron is not his popular appeal but because his presence on the platform alongside Michael Gove makes it impossible for the Prime Minister to present the debate as Tory modernisers versus oldschool Thatcherites and eccentric Ukippers. Lady Thatcher’s Bruges speech, the Maastricht rebels and the rise of Ukip are now nothing more than historical background for a very modern fight about national sovereignty, democratic accountability and Britain’s place in the world.

With party membership in decline, fringe parties on the rise and the Tories split over a matter of principle (rather than simply the choice of their next leader), there is no guarantee that the party will continue to exist in its current form.

Mr Cameron has only just succeeded in winning the first Tory parliamentary majority in 20 years. There is a possibility that the splits arising from his referendum will put the party out of power for another 20 years.

Reflecting on the victory that led to his fall, Sir Robert Peel later wrote: “It was impossible to reconcile the repeal of the Corn Laws by me with the keeping together of the Conservative Party, and I had no hesitation in sacrificing the subordinate object, and with it my own political interests.”

If Mr Cameron wins his EU referendum battle, what will he write in his own memoir?