There have always been two factions in the British Conservative party when it comes to Europe. The pro-Europeans see engaging with Europe as part of the nations trading legacy and see the value of being part of a group of democratic states.

The Euro-skeptics are more isolationist, as befits an island nation and see the EU as some kind of plot to take over their scepterd isle. Conservative policy in Europe is all about trying to find a middle path between these positions. Sometimes the pro-Europe camp is in the ascendancy and progress is made, sometimes the skeptics. Our lead story is about what happens when these two factions collide and take to the trenches.

Britain, after several refusals from the French, was allowed into the European Community in 1973, under Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath. His views on Europe were shaped as a young man when he attended the Nuremberg War Trials and concluded that Europe’s future needed peace, unity and democracy. Two years later, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson held a referendum on membership and secured a 66% Yes vote.

In 1987 the Single European Act was signed, creating an internal market and the Tory splits started showing. In 1988 Margaret Thatcher gave her infamous speech in Bruges, where she railed against centralisation and increasing EU powers. Other members of her Cabinet were more pro-Europe, such as Michael Heseltine and Ken Clarke. These squabbles came out in the open under John Major’s leadership, where an ever increasing parliamentary majority gave the small number of skeptics a key influence.

They drove the mild mannered Major to distraction and in 1993 he was overheard describing them as “bastards”. A more serious challenge came from outside the party in 1996 with the Referendum Party, founded by an eccentric millionaire and UK Independence Party in 1997. both of these targeted Conservative voters, often in marginal seats that Major could ill afford to lose and the pressure grew in the party to become more skeptical in response to this.

After the 1997 Blair landslide, Major retired to Lords cricket ground and William Hague became leader at the age of 36. To say that he was a poor leader is to be overly generous. He became a laughing stock and a desperate man by the 2001 election. In a speech to his party conference veered to the right, “Talk about Europe and they call you extreme. Talk about tax and they call you greedy. Talk about crime and they call you reactionary. Talk about asylum and they call you racist. Talk about your nation and they call you Little Englanders.” The public responded with a second Labour landslide and the Tories went into a tailspin until November 2003, when Michael Howard took over and reversed the decline and the party gained seats in the 2005 election. In December 2005, David Cameron took over as leader. In the hustings he had promised to take the European Tories out of the EPP-ED Group, as he saw them as too federalist.

Once in the leadership, he failed to carry out this pledge until after the results of the 2009 European elections, after considerable lobbying from Daniel Hannan MEP, who persuaded him that a more skeptical stance on Europe would win him votes in the next British elections and help deliver him to Downing St. Since then, the new group has been plagued by problems and concern over their fellow travellers in the group and it has isolated the Prime Minister in waiting from the resurgent centre-right parties in Europe and, more alarmingly for the skeptics, an Obama administration that wants a strong and united Europe to face challenges such as climate change, terrorism and the rise of China.

After our expose of an attempt to take control of a new party and think tank by the Euro-skeptics, divisions have come out into the open. David Cameron has announced a new policy, designed to take Europe off the agenda and drop plans for a referendum. Hannan and Roger Helmer have resigned from the front bench to push their new organisations and further call for a referendum in the UK on EU membership, but their influence seems to be waning. At least for now.