Gay marriage and a bitter Brexit divorce

Jun 27, 2016 by

by Dominic Lawson, Mailonline:

Margaret Thatcher’s official biographer, Charles Moore, has produced a dismissive epitaph for the Prime Minister’s political legacy. 

As a result of losing last week’s EU referendum, says Moore, David Cameron ‘has to be content with little more than gay marriage as his legacy’.

In fact these apparently unrelated matters are inextricably linked. 

I would go further: if it were not for David Cameron’s decision to legalise marriage between people of the same sex — a measure I supported — Britain would not now be on her way out of the EU.

It is now largely forgotten, but Cameron’s insistence on pushing through a Bill to legalise gay marriage — which eventually passed in 2013 — caused consternation within the Conservative Party. 

The proposal, which had not been in the Tories’ 2010 election manifesto, was vehemently opposed by about half of his parliamentary party — who happened also to be the most Eurosceptic — and appalled countless members of local Conservative associations.

This was seized on by Nigel Farage. I had lunch with Ukip’s leader at that time and I recall two things above all from it.

First, how disgusted he was that I did not want to have a drink before sitting down; and second, how gleeful he was at the way the gay marriage row was sending shire Tories in droves to switch to Ukip membership. 

Though Farage himself is a libertarian, and definitely no moralist, he exploited this to the full.

Remarkably, Cameron had been completely taken aback by the reaction of party members. 

The Lib Dem Education Minister in the Coalition, David Laws, recorded in his diary that Cameron exclaimed: ‘Gay marriage has been a disaster. It has totally split my party.’

And the PM confided it had been ‘a big mistake to upset the Tory base’.

Read here  (scroll down – this article is the second item in Dominic Lawson’s column)

Related Posts

Tags

Share This