Tag Archives: Euroscepticism

‘The Tory temperament means a U-turn on Europe is always possible’, Financial Times, 27 September 2017.

Posted on November 5, 2017 by

The prime minister’s speech in Florence may well help, in the short term, to clear some of the obstacles that currently stand in the way of the UK’s departure from the EU in 2019. But here is a heretical thought: … Continue reading →

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‘Simply unstoppable or a self-inflicted wound?’, UK in a Changing Europe, 21 June 2016.

Posted on August 4, 2016 by

Today, we heard the Prime Minister give his final plea on why we should remain in the European Union, but if David Cameron ever truly believed he could stop his party ‘banging on about Europe’ when it finally got back … Continue reading →

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‘The Corn Laws analogy is misplaced. There’s no good reason why the Tories should split over Europe’, ConservativeHome, 17 May 2016.

Posted on May 22, 2016 by

An apocryphal aphorism coined by a firebrand left-wing legend might not be an obvious way to start a discussion about what could happen to the Conservative Party in the wake of the EU Referendum, but Nye Bevan surely had a … Continue reading →

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‘David Cameron is not the man to shoot the Conservative Eurosceptic dog’, Telegraph, 10 May 2016

Posted on May 22, 2016 by

You know the Tory Civil War is back on when the body-snatching starts again in earnest.  A few weeks ago, Winston Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, the MP for Mid-Sussex, made it plain that he took a dim view of … Continue reading →

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‘The bloody history of civil war in the Tory party’, Financial Times, 27 February 2016

Posted on March 6, 2016 by

That the Conservative party believes as much in the strong state as it does in the free economy has long been both its triumph and its tragedy. Triumph because the combination of the two has often proved electorally unbeatable. Think … Continue reading →

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‘Cameron and Tebbit are both wrong: Tory activists are not as set on leaving the EU as many imagine’ (with Monica Poletti and Paul Webb), 5 February 2016.

Posted on February 21, 2016 by

David Cameron has run into trouble for warning Tory backbenchers not to make up their minds on whether to campaign for Leave or Remain “because of what your constituency association might say”. The reaction to his remarks was swift and … Continue reading →

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‘What Conservative MPs really think about Britain’s EU membership’ (with Philip Cowley), 2 February 2016.

Posted on February 21, 2016 by

There is a delicious irony in the fact that David Cameron, who ended up promising his party a referendum so as to avoid Europe tearing apart his government just as it tore apart John Major’s back in the 1990s, has … Continue reading →

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