Lord Heseltine [Image: David Jones/PA].

What Michael Heseltine seems to have forgotten is that Jeremy Corbyn recently allowed Labour MPs a free vote on another matter – air strikes on Syria – and maintained more support than his forerunner Tony Blair, when the former prime minister called a vote on military action in Iraq.

If Cameron allows a free vote and more than half his Parliamentary party are against him – as is believed – then the public will draw the obvious conclusion, that the Conservative leader cannot control his party but the Labour leader can.

It’s political suicide.

However, if Cameron doesn’t allow a free vote and a significant number of his Parliamentary party is against him, the result is even worse. It proves beyond doubt that he can’t control his party.

It’s political suicide.

Cameron’s only hope is that his MPs pull together behind him – but that’s a forlorn hope at the moment.

Perhaps that’s why he is chumming up with Rupert Murdoch again – to put a PR spin on the situation, with the power of the right-wing press to imprint it on the nation.

… Except the right-wing, mainstream media isn’t as powerful as it used to be, and is losing ground every day.

Indeed, every time the MSM is called in to bolster a failing administration, those of us who monitor such things will have another gauge by which to measure the collapse of press barons like Murdoch.

It is, therefore, with some surprise that Vox Political applauds Michael Heseltine’s words.

David Cameron will become “a laughing stock across the world” if he gives ministers a free vote in the EU referendum, according to Lord Heseltine, the Conservative former deputy prime minister.

The pro-European grandee said if Cameron gave in to pressure to suspend collective cabinet responsibility during the referendum campaign, he would split the Conservative party in a way that could result in it being forced from office.

But Owen Paterson, the Conservative former environment secretary, disagreed, saying a free vote would allow the party to reunite after the referendum to get on with implementing its manifesto commitments.

Source: Cameron will be ‘laughing stock’ if he allows EU free vote, Heseltine warns | Politics | The Guardian

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