Even if he was being sarcastic, Alex Salmond was not wrong on Tuesday when he pointed out that the Conservatives’ 31 days of internal calm about the European Union following last month’s election victory has evaporated.
On Monday, Cameron caused consternation within his ranks, implying that ministers must quit if they oppose his handling of negotiations to redraw the United Kingdom’s EU membership.
Since then, he has rowed back, saying that collective responsibility begins only after a deal is done – a deal which he says he wants done as quickly as possible, perhaps even allowing for a referendum next year.
In the process, however, Cameron has illustrated his biggest problem: clarity will provoke divisions, not unity. To negotiate with the rest of the EU, he must finally be clear. To keep the Conservatives united, he must remain opaque.
A new grouping formed within the Conservatives’ parliamentary party has already signed up over 50 members, with the expectation that more than 100 will eventually declare allegiance.
Barring extraordinary outcomes in the upcoming talks, this group, or many of its members, at the least, will eventually come down to recommending to voters that the UK should quit the EU.
Cameron, who has given up on hopes that he could curb free movement rules, can reasonably hope to restrict out-of-work EU migrants’ ability to claim welfare benefits.
Equally, he can hope for declarations to make the EU more competitive, though some of the actions he requires – such a single digital market, for example – requires more EU-wide standards, not less.
However, his chances of curbing tax credits to EU migrants – worth up to £10,000-a-year, in some cases – are far more problematic, in the face of righteous anger from Eastern European countries.
Meanwhile, the UK wants the reality of the existence of a two-speed EU to be recognised, abandoning the formal pledge in the EU treaties to the concept of “ever closer union”.
National parliaments, too, should have a stronger role, argues Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, though for many Conservatives this means a return to full Westminster sovereignty – an impossibility if EU membership is to continue.
Cameron cannot hope for treaty changes by 2017. At best, he will be offered pledges to include a new slew of British opt-outs in a treaty that will be unlikely to come into force long afterwards.. His hardliners, though, want more.
The EU referendum debate since 2010 has always been first about internal Conservative politics. Just two years ago, Cameron said it was “not the right thing to do”.
MPs easily gave the legislation a Second Reading on Tuesday, but major disagreements lie ahead over his desire to keep open the possibility that a referendum could be held next May.
If so, it would happen on the same day as the elections for the devolved parliaments and assemblies in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh – an outrage in the view of all three.
Despite criticism, Cameron insists that he has been clear about his demands – even though many of his backbenchers believe they are seeing merely the hors d’oeuvres, rather than the main dish.
In the end, he will return with a package. Certainly, he can trumpet minor gains as triumphs – but he will have a harder job doing so than Labour’s Harold Wilson did when he performed that trick during the 1975 referendum campaign.
A united stand by Conservatives in the campaign to come is an impossibility, so, perhaps, it can be argued that tolerated division is better than rebellion in the face of diktats.
In addition, there is a political logic to allowing Conservative MPs freedom, since that would help to prevent the UK Independence Party claiming in the 2020 election that they had been the only one to stand up for the UK.
However, there is danger, too. Disunity destroys parties. Wilson called his referendum to quell rebellion in his ranks. He conceded that ministers could campaign for a No vote only because he was too weak to stop them.
The cancer left behind then did not disappear after UK voters said Yes. Instead, the result exacerbated fissures that kept Labour out of power subsequently for nearly two decades.
The Conservatives’ pre-referendum internal debate, meanwhile, will be coloured, perhaps, poisoned, by the machinations of those who want to replace Cameron, particularly Boris Johnson, or Theresa May.
Both of them must define themselves against his favoured successor, George Osborne in a race where only Conservatives – firstly, MPs, then later party members – will have a vote.
On Tuesday, Johnson favoured — “thinking about it out loud, on the spur, of the moment”, though few believed it was any such thing — that it would “safer and more harmonious” to grant Cabinet members freedom to campaign as they choose.
Cameron’s referendum may keep the UK in the EU – the most likely outcome, for now; but it is a forecast subject to change. Few, if anyone believes, however, that it will end the discord that has marked the UK’s membership for 40 years.
Mark Hennessy is London Editor