Analysis: Tory backbench omerta hints at party truce

After a weekend of internecine Conservative bloodletting following Iain Duncan Smith's dramatic resignation on Friday night, David Cameron might have faced a rough ride in the Commons on Monday.

But after answering questions for an hour, the prime minister left the chamber without a scratch, as critics on his own benches held back and Jeremy Corbyn failed to strike.

The Labour leader's reticence was, by any recognisable political standard, inexplicable. Duncan Smith had given a succession of interviews on Sunday denouncing the budget's unfairness and accusing the government of ignoring the interests of poorer citizens because they don't vote Conservative.

Corbyn walked up to the open goal, stood before it, peered into its vast expanse, and walked away. He pressed the prime minister on chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne’s absence from the chamber and on the £4.4 billion hole in the budget left by the abandoned cuts to disability benefits. But he made no mention of Duncan Smith’s resignation, much less of his incendiary accusations against the government.

Disability cuts

Corbyn’s poor performance will be all the more disappointing to his supporters in view of his powerful response to Osborne’s budget last week, in which the Labour leader identified the cuts to disability benefits as emblematic of the cruelty and unfairness at the heart of the Conservatives’ economic policy.

The silence from Cameron’s own benches reflects the desire of both sides in the Tory civil war for a truce after the weekend’s hostilities.

For Cameron's backbench enemies, Duncan Smith's resignation had already had its intended effect of undermining the prime minister and wounding Osborne, perhaps fatally.

Until recently the odds-on favourite to succeed Cameron, Osborne was by Monday almost universally viewed in Westminster as having destroyed his chances of becoming Conservative leader.

His stock has been falling for a while after serial policy reversals but Osborne’s political obituary has been written numerous times and he has always rebounded.

In an emotional moment during his interview with Andrew Marr on Sunday, Duncan Smith insisted that his resignation was motivated solely by his longstanding commitment to social justice.

The former guardsman is undoubtedly sincere, although he has pursued his goal of social justice by overseeing changes to the welfare system that have caused suffering to the poor and the disabled.

Mutual dislike

It is also beyond doubt that Duncan Smith dislikes Osborne, who famously described him as being not clever enough to be in the cabinet.

Osborne and Cameron were among the plotters who pushed Duncan Smith out of the Conservative leadership in 2003 and his successor Michael Howard rewarded both with senior positions.

Duncan Smith also insists that his resignation had nothing to do with the referendum on Britain’s EU membership and his support for Brexit.

This is, however, the context in which it happened and all of the Conservatives who have spoken out in Duncan Smith’s favour are backers of Brexit.

The referendum campaign has brought into relief the decades-long Conservative rift over Europe, with the parliamentary party equally divided between those who want to remain in the EU and those who want to leave.

It comes as the Cameron- Osborne partnership, which has led the Conservative Party since 2005, has begun to look to many as exhausted and out of touch, despite last year’s election victory.

Duncan Smith’s resignation could be a crucial moment in the referendum campaign if it crystallises doubts about Cameron and Osborne and undermines the prime minister’s authority. Opinion polls have shown consistently that Cameron is among the Remain campaign’s strongest assets. In a close race, that asset cannot afford to be devalued.