Will the Tories tear themselves apart over Europe again?

[Gromit]

John Major's Government was rendered ineffective because of infighting in his own cabinet over Europe.

It appears many grassroots Tories are very anti-europe, but Mr Cameron and his shadow cabinet are either pro Europe, or afraid to tell us that they are anti-europe.

Boris Johnson summed up the split, when he went off-message today.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2667896/Boris-Johnson-blow-to-Tory-leaders-Treaty-bid.html

Will Europe be the Tories' devisive issue again, or have they learned from 12 years in the wilderness?

[jno]

the Tories have two natural consistencies (as well as swinging voters and others): country squires and their serfs who can't stand Johnny Foreigner (and city-dwellers who can't stand hearing foreign languages spoken in their once-pure streets), and big businessmen who know their profits would fall off a cliff if they lost preferential access to European markets. So the party has to find some way of keeping people with two wildly conflicting views on board. My guess is they will remain pro-Europe, on the grounds that the squires have nobody else to vote for. If they became anti-Europe, the businessmen could all vote for Labour, and that's the greater danger for the Tories.

[ludwig]

Grow up jno FFS.

It will be devisive, but no-one will partcularly care. They'll put on enough of a unified front so as not to jeopardise their election prospects.

[jno]

thank you, but I am quite elderly already and have seen this kind of problem before. As I said, the real split is in the electorate rather than the party, so a unified front won't necessarily get them anywhere. Given that the election is Labour's to lose, and they're doing it, the Tories' main task is not to scare potential voters away. Hence my prediction that they'll try to appear pro-Europe rather than anti.

[fredpuli47]

Well you're both right, methinks (but you are grown up jno! ). There are two factions and the Party will not want to 'rock the boat' and affect their election chances. Therefore Cameron will do what he can ( including using any weasel words, non-committal 'promises' and non-sequiturs necessary ) to get through the week with the semblance of unity and the Party will try to present the same image and put Europe out of mind, by the end of it.Nobody will particularly care. I reckon he'll succeed !

[ludwig]

I meant mentally. Your first post could have come from a 12 year old.

[jno]

pity, I thought it was quite a rational analysis of the difficulties facing a political party whose constituents are sharply divided on a core issue; but perhaps British 12-year-olds are a lot smarter than they look.

[Rollo]

Will the Tories tear themselves apart?

Possibly,but only after they have been in government for some time.

[R1Geezer]

Get real jno, the public are generally anti EU. If Cameron announced he'd stop paying them 15 billion a year and pull out, he'd win hands down. Possibly to do with the press, a lot of the public have their heads full of EU meddling, corruption, straight banana's etc. some truths some half truths but the public, we are easily effected, so on balance I'd say Britain is more anti EU.

[jno]

nice to classify straight bananas as a truth or a half-truth when actually it's a total non-truth, a category you didn't include. But I don't think the public as a whole care very deeply either way. It's not an issue for Labour or the Lib Dems or their voters. It's a Tory issue, and they're the ones who are going to have to decide how best to fudge it.

Of course if any politician offers the public money, they'll stand up and cheer. But it's a bit like your bank manager offering you £1000 - out of your own account. It might be nice to have, but then again maybe you'd prefer it to stay in the bank and make money for you. That's why business in general doesn't want to get out of the EU: they make money there.

[R1Geezer]

Get real Labour are just as split as the Tories! Are you seriously saying that Labour are all good Europhiles?
There is a regulation on the curvature of Bananas, fact. They don't say they have to be straight so it's a half truth, geddit?

[R1Geezer]

Commission Regulation (EC) 2257/94

[jno]

It doesn't matter whether Labour MPs are split on Europe or not, it's just not an issue for them. Nobody is going to switch from Labour to the Tories over Europe. If a voter was strongly anti-Europe, he'd have switched long ago. If he was strongly pro-Europe he'd have stayed with Labour. Getting the vote of strongly pro-Europe Labour voters, while retaining their own anti-Europe voters (who might switch to Ukip), is the Tories' problem. Labour's problems are many, but Europe isn't one of them.

[Gromit]

(EC) 2257/94

bananas must be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature". In the case of "Extra class" bananas, there is no wiggle room, but Class 1 bananas can have "slight defects of shape", and Class 2 bananas can have full-on "defects of shape".

No attempt is made to define "abnormal curvature" in the case of bananas.

Not sure why it was a problem for anyone that the EU have a standard for classifying bananas. They were not trying to ban them.

[R1Geezer]

no problem at all gromit, I was just attempting to inform jno that it was not an untruth that regs exist

[Gromit]

What was a Euro myth was that they were trying to ban them. When the public are reminded of the EU and bananas they remember the lie untruth that there was a ban, when there wasn't.

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/06/world/the-bent-banana-ban-and-other-british-gibes-at-europe.html

[jno]

the story was clear enough at the time: the EU want to ban curved bananas. It wasn't true. It wasn't even half true.

[Colmc54]

I typed in half my answer which turned out to be a waste of time as Answerbank froze on me and I lost everything I had carefully typed in. Hopefully this is a technical problem and not something else. Anyway I can't be bothered to type it all in again so cheers.

[Colmc54]

Any more than any of us,no. We need good statistics we can trust and not hyperbole to make a rational decision on how to vote. I'm not holding my breath however.