David Cameron might be forgiven for thinking that he is on a bit of roll right now. The proposals set out on Tuesday by European Council President Donald Tusk have met with broad, if muted, approval across Europe and he demonstrated that his backbench is being relatively well-behaved during his questioning in Parliament on Wednesday.
A key part in this has been the unwillingness of members of his cabinet to take the first step in challenging the outcomes of his European negotiations: just consider Theresa May’s comments on Tuesday that welcomed the “very good wins” on deporting criminals and the “basis of a deal”. This active support – May was not forced to give her statement – suggests that all the media interest about cabinet splits might well not translate into anyone of them picking up the lead against Cameron.
This is a wider problem for the Leave campaign. With a vote now looking very likely indeed for June, there is still no agreement about which group should front the campaign to end British membership of the EU, let alone who the ‘face’ of that campaign might be.
Read the rest of Dr Simon Usherwood’s piece here.
