LAB’s one big hope is that the Tories will tear themselves apart over the EU
What’s the post EURef blue team going to be like?
The Tories have a long history of tearing themselves apart over Europe. Who can forget how in the weeks after John Major’s sensational election victory in 1992 huge fault lines started to develop in the party. It wasn’t helped by “black Wednesday” – that extraordinary day when Britain could not sustain the value of sterling on the foreign exchanges markets and the country had to leave the ERM.
How lucky Tony Blair was a couple of years later to take over the red team when the Conservatives, the party ostensibly in power, had to try to get business through when so many of its MPs we so ready to rebel.
The events of the 1992-1997 parliament destroyed the Tory’s reputation for more than a decade and half.
Next year’s referendum isn’t going to create a sense of blue unity whatever the outcome. If it goes for LEAVE it’s hard to see Cameron surviving. If it goes for REMAIN the hard line Euro sceptics are never going to forgive him and everything he said and did during the campaign will be subject to the most intense scrutiny.
For the latter, of course, a defeat means that the chance of realising their dream, a UK free from Brussels, will be even further off than it has ever been.
The fact that Labour is so split and divided at the moment is going to make matters worse. CON dissenters will have less to fear about rocking the boat because the alternative, Corbyn-led LAB, is perceived as being so piss poor.
There’s nothing that Corbyn has done in his 100+ days as leader to suggest he’s got the political wherewithal to exploit the likely blue divisions.
Whatever an interesting UK politics year ahead.