The spectre haunting the tories

Events appear to be ensuring that the perennial issue of Europe is as likely to be an unavoidable banana skin in the path of the present tory leader as it was for his predecessors.

According to the Beeb, Cameron will say "later this week" what his policy is on a Lisbon Treaty referendum after the Czechs moved closer to ratification. His stance in 2007 was to provide a "cast iron" guarantee to hold a referendum on anything that emerged from EU talks. But the spin has recently changed to describe the possibility of the treaty passing into law as “a new situation" – albeit an entirely foreseeable one.

Despite enough hedging to build a respectably-sized maze, nothing can disguise that this is a major test for Cammers. He has to position himself with those voters who still see UKIP as an alternative without coming over as so xenophobic as to deter drifting Lib Dems. He also needs to square things with a membership who are not so much aghast at the prospect of federalised Europe as the possibility of who might get the job of running it.

It’s a big ask, but if he can pull it off - and survive a public flogging from the Telegraph and the Murdoch taliban in the process - then he might actually have the makings of a prime minister. Otherwise it's a case of Czech-mate, innit?

Update: Tories rule out referendum. The online story has a caption of William Hague - who announced the decision - as saying "it is a bad day for democracy". We assume he means the ratification and not his party's revised position.