Under pressure: David Cameron has been warned by Tory peer Nigel Lawson that he must let Cabinet ministers, including Home Secretary Theresa May (pictured), speak freely on Europe

David Cameron must let his Cabinet ministers speak freely on Europe, Nigel Lawson warned last night.

With eight of the Prime Minister’s top team ready to campaign for Britain to quit the EU, the Tory peer raised the pressure on him to let them do so without them needing to quit.

Lord Lawson urged Mr Cameron to follow Harold Wilson’s precedent set during the EU referendum of 1975. The Labour premier suspended Cabinet collective responsibility to prevent civil war in the Labour Party.

‘It would clearly be sensible in terms of party management to allow Cabinet ministers to speak out on both sides – once the date for the referendum is set – not least to enable the Conservative party to reunite easily once the referendum is over, whatever the result,’ Lord Lawson told the Mail.

‘That is what Wilson decided in 1975 and he was right. He may have been a bad prime minister, but he knew about party management.’

The former chancellor’s intervention came amid growing anger at Mr Cameron’s gag on ministers speaking out. John Redwood said yesterday that Cabinet members would be ‘placed in an impossible position if they were forced to keep quiet on such an important issue’.

The Tory former minister said Mr Cameron would have to quit if UK voters defied him and decided to leave the EU.

He suggested the Prime Minister’s support for EU membership meant he would be the wrong man to negotiate Britain’s exit terms. ‘We know Mr Cameron wishes to retire from the job of prime minister before the next general election anyway,’ he said. ‘After the referendum I am sure we would choose a new leader who believed in (wanting to) leave and would get us a good deal.

‘I don’t think Mr Cameron would want to stay. We would need someone who believed in leaving who could go to France and Germany and sort it out in an amicable way.’

Eight Cabinet ministers are leaning toward support for ‘Brexit’ – with three almost certain to quit if Mr Cameron orders them to campaign to stay in.

One senior minister said: ‘The question for me is, once the renegotiation is complete, what will change?

‘What will the EU no longer be able to do that is currently the case? The answer, it seems to me, is not a lot. We have been far, far too modest in our demands.’

Another senior Government insider said that if Mr Cameron did not lift the gag on ministers speaking out ‘he will wake up and find his Cabinet has broken up’.

Warning: Tory peer Nigel Lawson (left) said the Prime Minister must let his top team speak freely on Europe

The source predicted at least three resignations – with more if the polls suggested the leave campaign had a fighting chance of success.

Senior Tories believe work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, Commons leader Chris Grayling and Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers are all determined to campaign for Brexit.

Others considering joining the ‘Leave’ campaign include home secretary Theresa May, business secretary Sajid Javid, culture secretary John Whittingdale, employment minister Priti Patel and justice secretary Michael Gove.

TORY DONORS 'BEING TOLD TO BACK EU' Tory Party chairman Lord Feldman has privately admitted ‘directing’ donors to give money to the campaign to keen Britain in the European Union, it was claimed last night. Steve Baker, of Conservatives for Britain, says the peer has conceded to him that he has been assisting wealthy supporters hoping to help the pro-EU campaign. The Conservative Party has pledged to stay neutral in the lead-up to the referendum, which David Cameron has indicated will be next year. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Baker says Lord Feldman told him he is also referring donors to the Leave campaign. Advertisement

London mayor Boris Johnson is also flirting with the Brexit campaign.

Another Eurosceptic, former environment secretary Owen Paterson, insisted a free vote was the only way to keep the Conservative Party together. ‘We have a real responsibility to the British nation to come together again after the referendum to carry on governing properly,’ he said.

‘The way to do that is to let Cabinet ministers – once the settlement is seen to be what it is – to make a decision and to campaign for whichever side they want in the referendum.’

Mr Duncan Smith’s former chief-of-staff Tim Montgomerie last night urged Eurosceptic ministers to ‘get off the fence’.

In an open letter, he said: ‘I don’t mean to be rude but what exactly are you all waiting for? I respect your politeness and sense of loyalty to the PM. He’s asked all of you to say schtum until the negotiations are complete. But he’s not using this in-between time to stay neutral himself.’

Ministers have been ordered to toe the line while Mr Cameron continues his negotiations with Brussels on a new deal for Britain.

Downing Street yesterday insisted no decision had been taken on whether to allow ministers to speak out once the referendum campaign has started.

Silent: Senior Tories believe work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith (left) is determined to campaign for Brexit. Others considering joining the ‘Leave’ campaign include justice secretary Michael Gove (right)

PS: REMEMBER WHEN YOU SAID THIS, PRIME MINISTER? Eurosceptic tone: Prime Minister David Cameron In the past, the Prime Minister has struck a Eurosceptic tone. In November 2007 he described an ever closer European Union as: ‘The last gasp of an outdated ideology, a philosophy that has no place in our new world of freedom, a world which demands we fight bureaucratic over-reach and lead Europe into the hope and potential of a post-bureaucratic age.’ In November 2014, the Prime Minister said: ‘If our concerns fall on deaf ears and we cannot put our relationship with the EU on a better footing, then of course I rule nothing out.' Yet — despite demands to stop migrants claiming benefits in their first four years being rebuffed — any pretence of a Brexit has been abandoned. Last Friday, in Brussels, he said: ‘I firmly believe that for our own economic security, and increasingly for our national security, the best future for Britain is in a reformed European Union.’ Advertisement

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said it was ‘a decision for further down the road’. But Tory sources say Mr Cameron is privately determined that his Government presents a united front on the issue.

Lord Heseltine yesterday backed his stance, warning that Mr Cameron would make himself an international ‘laughing stock’ if he bows to demands to give ministers a free vote.

An outspoken Tory supporter of EU membership, the peer said Mr Wilson’s 1975 decision had left Labour in disarray for years.

He said that it was naive to think the participants in any Conservative Party civil war would afterwards ‘sit round the table and happily smile together’. He added: ‘The consequence of having a free vote would be that the divisions, the divisiveness, the bitterness that would flow would actually, in my view, make the Prime Minister’s position look very difficult.’

The dogs that don't bark: Whether Britain should stay in the EU is the most vital debate of our age. But major Tory figures, who've previously voiced Eurosceptic views, have been silenced - by Mr Cameron

The dominant voice in Britain’s EU negotiations is David Cameron — who insists he is battling hard to secure the best deal for Britain.

But, following last week’s summit in Brussels, he made it clear that he sees the UK’s future within a reformed European Union.

Inside his Cabinet are senior figures far less enthusiastic about the sclerotic, statist EU, and who, over the years, have voiced grave concerns about everything from mass immigration to the red tape strangling business and throttling jobs. Junior ministers, too, have joined their calls for an exit.

Yet at this crucial moment their voices have fallen largely silent — bound by the Prime Minister and the doctrine of collective responsibility not to speak out until the renegotiation is complete.

Here, JAMES SLACK and TOM WITHEROW offer a reminder of the powerful views of the dogs who cannot bark.

Iain Duncan Smith

Welfare Secretary

‘I will fight with all my strength to defend the British people’s right to govern themselves. Conservatives want to build a New Europe — not a single state with its own currency and constitution, but a Europe of sovereign, enterprising nations.’

Powerful views: Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith (left) and Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond (right)

October 2003

‘I am for free trade and political co-operation. I am against the euro and European government in principle.’

2001

Philip Hammond

Foreign Secretary

‘The status quo is simply not acceptable. [It] is not in Britain’s interests . . . if the offer by European partners is nothing, no change, no negotiation, I am pretty clear what the answer of the British people in the referendum is going to be.’

July 2014

Sajid Javid

Business Secretary

‘[Leaving Europe] isn’t something I’d be afraid of . . . Currently costs outweigh benefits. Unless we get major reform, nothing’s off the table.’

November 2015

‘If the British people decide they want to leave the European Union . . . I’d embrace the opportunities that would create.’

September 2013

Business Secretary Sajid Javid (pictured left) has said [Leaving Europe] isn't something I'd be afraid of' while, in August 2015, Home Secretary Theresa May questioned what the EU's free movement policy had become

Theresa May

Home Secretary

‘When it was first enshrined, free movement meant the freedom to move to a job, not the freedom to cross borders to look for work or claim benefits.

‘Yet last year, four out of ten EU migrants — 63,000 people — came here with no definite job whatsoever. We must take some big decisions, face down powerful interests . . .

‘The numbers coming from Europe are unsustainable and the rules have to change. Free movement rules don’t just mean European nationals have the right to reside in Britain, they now mean anybody who has married a European can come here almost without condition.’

August 2015

Priti Patel

Employment Minister

‘Euroscepticism has cemented itself as the prevailing view of the public towards the EU. The British public have had enough of the unaccountable decision-making processes and the hideously expensive, out-of-touch Brussels bureaucracy that have defined the EU. The status quo of EU membership is simply not an option. The British public want less Europe and more Britain.

‘The British public want our political leaders to say “No” to the unaccountable, federalist European agenda which has led to the widespread failures of the European Union we face today.’

June 2014

Employment Minister Priti Patel (left) said in June 2014: 'The British public want less Europe and more Britain', while Justice Secretary Michael Gove (right) has expressed his frustration at Britain's position with the EU

Michael Gove

Justice Secretary

‘I’m not happy with our position with the European Union. But my preference is for a change in Britain’s relationship. My ideal is exactly what the majority of the population think, which is that the present situation is no good, to say that life outside would be perfectly tolerable. We could contemplate [leaving], there would be certain advantages.’

May 2013

Boris Johnson

London mayor

‘Would London flourish outside [of the EU]? Yes of course it would . . . I recall the prophets of doom who said that the City would collapse if we didn’t join the euro, remember that — they said [the City] would dissolve under a giant plague of rats. Absolute rubbish. There is every reason to think, if we got the right free trade deal, that we would flourish . . . I think the price of getting out is lower than it’s ever been.’

August 2015

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London (left), is adamant the capital would 'flourish' outside of the EU. Leader of the Commons Chris Grayling has made it clear he sits on the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party

Chris Grayling

Leader of Commons

‘I’ve made no bones about the fact that I sit on the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party . . . If the British people decide to leave, then we leave. This is a strong country and we will prosper whatever the situation is.’

October 2015

Penny Mordaunt

Defence Minister

‘William Hague [then Foreign Secretary] argued that there is some good to come from Europe, but any good you care to name . . . could be achieved without the mass of ills that have come with it.’

October 2011

Defence Minister Penny Mordaunt (pictured left) and Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers (right)

Theresa Villiers

Northern Ireland

After the Government handed a contract which could have safeguarded 3,000 UK jobs to a German firm: ‘We are bound by European Union rules, which mean . . . we are not permitted to take into account the location of the factory in determining which bid is nominated. That is a consequence of our membership of the EU.’

June 2011

Justine Greening

International aid

‘Free movement of labour was never meant to be an unqualified principle, irrespective of how it worked on the ground. We need to see action taken in relation to negotiation with the EU.’

October 2014