SIMON HEFFER: My cunning plan to save David Cameron's bacon

By SIMON HEFFER FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Published: 20:03 EST, 17 January 2014 | Updated: 20:03 EST, 17 January 2014

The Tory leadership’s policy of delaying an in/out referendum on Europe until  2017 is fast coming unstuck, and the consequences could be fatal.

This week, 95 Tory MPs stepped up the pressure and signed a letter demanding a veto over any legislation forced upon Britain from Brussels. For almost half the party’s backbenchers not only hate our current arrangements with the EU but they know their constituents hate them, too.

However, the signatories realise that hell will freeze over before ministers would ever make such a challenge.

Winning way: If David Cameron wants to stay in power, he should bring forward the referendum on the EU to, at the latest, the day of the next General Election - May 7, 2015

So their action was deliberately provocative — proof they are fed up with the Tory leadership’s attempts to soft-pedal on our continued membership of the EU.

For his part, despite his vow to renegotiate Britain’s membership terms, David Cameron is encountering one sizeable obstacle: other EU countries’ determination not to renegotiate.

His restless MPs are well aware of this. They also watch in despair as increasing numbers of party activists — and traditional Tory voters — defect to Ukip, whose policy is for an immediate referendum.

The renewed backbench ferment comes as they see scant benefit from the recovering economy in terms of more public support and look with trepidation towards May’s European elections.

Indeed, a poll by YouGov this week predicted that the Tories will come third, behind Labour and Ukip.

What’s more, the General Election is fast approaching and many Conservative backbenchers — perhaps up to a third — fear they won’t have a job in Westminster in June next year.

Not surprisingly, frustration is enormous and the mood could become poisonous.

Before Christmas, Tory Central Office tried to brazen out the possibility of a disastrous European election result and suggested that the PM would remain resolute in his policy, yet also offer various new initiatives to appease Euro-sceptics.

But the mood has now changed. A growing band of Tory MPs cannot believe it will be ‘business as usual’ if there were to be a grim showing in the Euro elections.

I have talked with many who are convinced that defeat next year is inevitable, despite the shamefully two-faced performance of Ed Miliband and his party.

In such circumstances, the spotlight will naturally fall on Mr Cameron’s leadership.

Many believe that the only way to avert a disaster in May is to mount a leadership challenge — doubtless with an improbable candidate — which would leave the party destabilised and vulnerable.

No wonder divisions in the party are widening.

For example, Nicholas Soames, the estimable pro-European Tory MP, said this week that those who share his views should more aggressively argue the case for EU membership.

The truth, however, is that the EU is so unpopular among most Tory voters that for a Conservative MP to argue the benefits of membership would drive hundreds more supporters into the arms of Ukip.

If Mr Cameron wants to stay in power, he should bring forward the referendum to, at the latest, the day of the next General Election — May 7, 2015. He should also hound the Labour Party for their denial of voters’ democratic rights. This certainly ought to win him extra votes. Sadly, however, Mr Cameron won’t do this.

Instead, he seems hell-bent on sacrificing the Tory Party — and, more importantly, Britain — because of a misguided desire to keep his own seat at the top table of the European club.

Tragically, he refuses to see that this club (which increasingly resembles a western European version of the old Soviet Union) has destroyed British sovereignty and is retarding economic prosperity.

More worryingly, this blindness may lead to the election of a profoundly destructive Labour government with a toxic and unprincipled mania for a European superstate.

It's not the sex, it's the stupidity

When Ross Perot ran for the U.S. Presidency as an independent in the 1990s, he promised to have no adulterers in his administration, saying: ‘If their wives can’t trust them, why should I?’

This was a little short-sighted, as some adulterers have been effective politicians — for example, Lord Palmerston (who ran a successful administration from 1859 to 1865) or even Napoleon.

However, in the case of Francois Hollande, the international laughing-stock who runs France, the problem is not his philandering, but his utter incompetence at keeping it quiet.

Caught: In the case of Francois Hollande the problem is not his philandering, but his utter incompetence at keeping it quiet

Cuts we must shoot down

Former U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates states the obvious by describing a Britain with weakened defences as a weakened power in the world. Yet our government would rather squander money on overseas aid than have proper armed forces. The result will be potentially hostile countries such as Russia and China treating us with a lack of respect.

Successive governments have run our Forces down much too far, and I hope we don’t end up paying a terrible price.

Ed Miliband has hinted that future Labour leadership elections might be one-man, one-vote contests.

I thought they already were — and the one man who had the vote was trades union boss Len McCluskey to whom Mr Miliband owes his job.

If Labour wanted to be truly democratic, the change should happen now, and not — like party-funding reforms that would dilute  union power — in five years’ time.

Why on earth has the Treasury guaranteed Scotland’s debt in the event of its becoming independent? Instead, it should have declared that, pending the outcome of September’s referendum, it would be borrowing no money at all on behalf of the Scots. Then, when their lights started going out, the Scots would realise how much they depend on English generosity, and how very expensive it would be to borrow money themselves as an independent nation.

Forget the row over whether top staff at the taxpayer-funded Royal Bank of Scotland should get huge bonuses, the most important issue is how quickly the Government can sell its share at a profit.

To that end, the bank needs to be run by a highly skilled team.  By all means postpone bonuses for a year or two — but if they aren’t paid at all, RBS will remain a millstone around all our necks.

Iain Duncan Smith suggests child benefit should be given to a woman only for her first two children. He is right. Britain is hardly under-populated and in some regions — notably the South-East — is bursting at the seams. Just as the pension age is having to rise in order to reduce the welfare bill, so should benefits in the early years be reined in. People may have as many children as they like, but any more than two should be their own financial responsibility.

Sleazeball Lord Rennard is just one of many nonentity Lib Dems who have been packed into the House of Lords, thus diminishing that once-august institution. Although he was cleared this week of a litany of alleged sexual offences against women party workers, there is no smoke without fire and Rennard (right) was told by Nick Clegg to apologise. His refusal raises the question: if Mr Clegg can’t maintain order in his own dwindling and pathetic little party, how can this dismal man be expected to be a serious deputy prime Minister?