POLITICS

Loyalty is erupting all over the Tory backbenches in great geysers of hypocrisy

BORIS JOHNSON

Now is the biter bit. Now Bill Cash knows the sensation he so often produced in Mr Major, of something stirring behind him; how it feels to be at the head of a frac- tious crew. James Cran and Michael Spicer, once leading lights of the Fresh Start group, named after those who signed the June 1992 Early Day Motion calling for the death of Maastricht, have signalled to the Tory leadership that they intend to fight on Europe no longer; and others are following suit. Pax, pax, pax.

Loyalty is erupting all over the Tory backbenches in great geysers of hypocrisy. Suddenly the game has changed, and the name of the game is Blair. The staunchest Brussels-bashers are coming to the regret- ful conclusion, that if there is one thing more important than battling against each incursion of the Common Market, it is that the Conservative Government should be re-elected. The hard core of dissent remains. But the flanks are crumbling.

On the rebel side, Cash loyalists are out- raged: 'We assume Cran is looking for a job,' said one, noting with satisfaction that he did not get one in the reshuffle. 'Spicer and Cran are playing their own game,' said another. The pair are accused of trying to bridge-build between the Government and the Fresh Start group, of oiling up to the whips. James Cran has appeared on televi- sion, agreeing with Kenneth Clarke in his spineless, amoral formula, that monetary union is a long way off and therefore not much to worry about.

`Agreeing with the Government about the broad thrust of European policy is one thing,' says a rebel loyal to Cash. 'Agreeing on the detail is just ... polluting oneself.' Some say Cash can count on 11 or 12 trusties: the Biffens, the Budgens, the Go- rmans.

`It's not over,' say die-hards in the loyalist camp. They speak of an 'absolute determi- nation to go ahead with our agenda', harry- ing at every turn in the run-up to the 1996 inter-governmental conference, general election or no. But a gathering band is rediscovering its former loyalty to the cause of Conservative victories, notably in their own seats.

And what can you say to these born again faithful? How can Cash and co. criticise the people whom we might, after David Bowie's 1974 song 'Rebel Rebel', call the rebel rebels?

They have raised their eyes and seen their duty to the Tory party written in the heavens. In Brussels and in Whitehall, Cash has always been seen as a slightly demonic figure; once a shining hope, now cast out from the right hand of the almighty, ban- ished from all prospect of preferment, but exulting in his power, laughing richly on the backbenches, resembling — yes — nothing so much as Milton's Satan, chief of the rebel angels.

Like Satan, he now attends the tiresome wrangling of his followers, Belial and Moloch. Perhaps he seethes as Belial argues that a frontal assault on the powers of heaven is no longer possible, now that Mr Major's leadership is secured by the battle of Corfu.

Like Satan, Cash must even endure being snubbed by Abdiel, goody-two-shoes deserter of the rebel band. Abdiel, it will be remembered, suddenly announces that he does not share the views of the rest of the Seraphim gathered on the Mountain of the Congregation, and that he finds all this talk of conspiracy against God frankly sicken- ing.

So spake the Seraph Abdiel faithful found, Among the faithless, faithful only he; Among unnumerable false, unmoved, Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal...

As Abdiel rediscovers the true leader, to the jubilation of his long-suffering con- stituency association, and the grumblings of his former fellow-conspirators, Cash-Satan might ask, well, what was he doing there in the first place? We do not yet know the strength of the rebel rebels, the defectors from Cash's band.

One test will come this autumn, perhaps 'if they find the soil in our pockets, we say we're off to play cricket.' in November, when government whips face a serious challenge over the EC Future Finance bill. Many Tory MPs are outraged that this will involve higher VAT contribu- tions to the EC budget, to pay for the Athens metro and teacher training in Por- tugal, at a time when VAT on heating bills is anyway due to go up by another 8 per cent. If Labour refuses to support the bill, perhaps by insisting on an amendment in favour of the social chapter, Mr Major's leadership might yet again hang by a thread.

Already, though, some of the best and brightest of the Euro-sceptics are indicating that, under certain circumstances, they could support the Government. Naturally, they pretend not to care that all of them were passed over in the reshuffle, and that none of them has yet been offered the job of PPS to a minister. But they do care. And even the youngest of them is starting to wonder whether he would really prefer the party to have a spell in opposition, given that a victorious Blair might prove difficult to shift.

`We have got to be very careful,' says Mr Cran. 'We could hand over power to the Labour Party by picking an argument on every and any European issue that comes along.' He strikes a chord.

Among the Tory press, too, we must pre- pare for an outbreak of old-fashioned loy- alty to the Conservative cause. Some of the tougher school will continue to see Mr Blair as the most efficient utensil for dis- posing of Mr Major. But we must assume that most of the tabloids are preparing, perhaps a trifle wearily, for a ritualistic trashing of Tony and Cherie.

The heart bleeds for Cherie Blair, her face radiant with innocent left-wing belief. Already her choice of carpet slippers is under fire. Her private life, alas, will not be far behind. Reds will be discovered under the beds. Something awful-seeming will be rootled out.

All this is good news for John Major, just as it is bad news for Bill Cash. In the long run, though, Cash can take comfort from the approach of his Miltonian role-model. As we have seen, the leader of the rebel angels had trouble with his own rebels. But his struggle was and is unending. What though the field be lost, Euro-sceptics, all is not lost. Like the fight for men's souls, the battle over Europe will never go away.