British Prime Minister David Cameron called the EU referendum to try to heal Conservative party divisions on Europe, but the bitterness of the campaign has sparked fears for its future — and his.
Senior Tories on rival sides of the debate have been attacking each other with increasing ferocity, with those backing a so-called Brexit even turning their fire on government policy to make their point.
The extent of the internal conflict has raised questions about how long Mr Cameron, who was re-elected in 2014 with a slim parliamentary majority, can survive regardless of the result on June 23.
Opinion polls point to a tight race, although the Cameron-backed campaign to “Remain” has a slight lead.
“The referendum may well break the Tories,” wrote Philip Stephens, the chief political commentator for the Financial Times.
While he said it had been a “delusion” to think the referendum would end decades of divisions on Europe, “the ferocity of the campaign has surprised even the realists”.
Philip Johnston of the Daily Telegraph added: “This civil war could destroy one of the most successful and enduring political parties the world has seen.”
Their comments echo those of veteran legislator Ken Clarke, a pro-European who served under Mr Cameron and Prime Ministers John Major and Margaret Thatcher. He warned the Tories were “dangerously close” to the splits over Europe that helped bring down Thatcher and dominated Major’s time in office, which ended with the party being cast into Opposition for 13 years.
Mr Cameron wants to stay in the EU but has allowed members of his party a free vote, with the result that five senior ministers and 128 of the Tories’ 330 MPs are campaigning against him in favour of a Brexit.
A sixth eurosceptic minister, Iain Duncan Smith, resigned in March. He said it was a protest at welfare cuts but was accused of acting to boost the “Leave” campaign.
His subsequent attacks on the government opened the door for increasingly pointed arguments between other ministers, which stepped up with the start of the official referendum campaign in April.
Justice secretary Michael Gove, who backs Brexit, accused Mr Cameron’s side of peddling a “depressing and pessimistic vision” of a Britain that cannot survive on its own.
Finance minister George Osborne, a “Remain” supporter, accused those wanting to leave of being “economically illiterate”.
The intervention of US President Barack Obama on Mr Cameron’s side with a threat that Britain would be at the “back of the queue” in US trade ties if it left EU did little to calm the situation.
Mr Cameron’s decision to publish a document setting out the benefits of the EU using £9.3 million of taxpayers’ money also cau-sed outrage among Tory backbenchers.
