barryqwalsh
Gold Member
- Sep 30, 2014
- 3,397
- 252
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Remarkably, Cameron had been completely taken aback by the reaction of party members.
The Lib Dem Education Minister in the Coalition, David Laws, recorded in his diary that Cameron exclaimed: ‘Gay marriage has been a disaster. It has totally split my party.’
And the PM confided it had been ‘a big mistake to upset the Tory base’.
So how was he to win back their affections — or at least prevent more mass defection to Ukip? By offering the one thing he thought would ‘shoot Ukip’s fox’ — an in-or-out referendum on our EU membership.
And indeed, Laws’ diary later quotes Cameron saying to Nick Clegg, when the then Deputy PM questioned the sense of risking such a vote: ‘You may be right, Nick, but what can I do? My backbenchers are fantastically Eurosceptic and I’ve got Ukip breathing down my neck.’
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/...malcolm_turnbull_will_the_base_will_have_its/
The Lib Dem Education Minister in the Coalition, David Laws, recorded in his diary that Cameron exclaimed: ‘Gay marriage has been a disaster. It has totally split my party.’
And the PM confided it had been ‘a big mistake to upset the Tory base’.
So how was he to win back their affections — or at least prevent more mass defection to Ukip? By offering the one thing he thought would ‘shoot Ukip’s fox’ — an in-or-out referendum on our EU membership.
And indeed, Laws’ diary later quotes Cameron saying to Nick Clegg, when the then Deputy PM questioned the sense of risking such a vote: ‘You may be right, Nick, but what can I do? My backbenchers are fantastically Eurosceptic and I’ve got Ukip breathing down my neck.’
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/...malcolm_turnbull_will_the_base_will_have_its/
