PM says there is no split within party over Europe as Clegg tells off Tories for 'game-playing'
David Cameron has insisted it is his "absolute intention" for the coalition to continue until the general election in 2015 and insisted there was no split within the Conservative party over Europe.
The prime minister's comments came as his deputy, Nick Clegg, prepares to respond to recent rebellions by warning that he will not allow the coalition to be broken up early and telling the Tories to get back to governing from the centre and end the game-playing at Westminster.
Brushing off recent wrangles with the Tory right, amid the rise of Ukip, which saw 114 backbench Conservatives vote for an amendment regretting the absence of a commitment to an in-out referendum on Europe in the Queen's speech, Cameron said the party was unified on the issue.
"On Europe, I think there is actually incredible unity and agreement, not just in the Tory party but across the country," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday. "The Conservative party managed to have a disagreement over the last couple of weeks over an issue we actually agree about."
He said he remained committed to a referendum in 2017, rejecting the idea that it could be moved forward, as some Tory backbenchers would like. "It doesn't matter the pressure I come under from Europe, or inside the Tory party, this policy isn't going to change," he said.
The prime minister has also come under pressure from the right of the party on his decision to press forward with legislation to legalise gay marriage, with 133 Conservative MPs, including two members of the cabinet, voting against the plans on Tuesday. Cameron said it was "right for Britain to take on this issue. I'm proud of the fact this legislation has passed the Commons … I think it's important that we have this degree of equality, and I say this as a massive supporter of marriage." But he insisted that those who opposed it were not bigoted and said the disagreement just reflected the fact that the Conservative party was a "broad church". He offered a crumb of comfort to rightwingers, promising them that it would not be the start of a series of policies addressing similar concerns.
"Is this the first of many issues like that? No it isn't," he said. "The government is going to be absolutely focused on the big picture."
The prime minister rejected the idea that the alleged remarks by the Conservative chairman Lord Feldman, who denies having described activists as "mad, swivel-eyed loons", were, whether actually spoken or not, an accurate account of how Tory grassroots activists were viewed by his inner circle. "That is simply not the case," he said. "It's not what I think. It's not what the people around me think … I think of the volunteers in my own constituency, they're not just my friends and my supporters, I'm one of them."