Strange bedfellows in the Commons division lobbies: Colin Brown looks at the historical parallels for a possible alliance of right and left over Maastricht

ONE DISGRUNTLED minister last night compared the antics of the Tory rebels threatening to wreck the Maastricht treaty Bill to Marxist-Leninists. 'They were entryists and supported other parties - just like the Euro-sceptics,' he said.

Most of the rebels are right-wing Thatcherites to whom the social chapter is socialist anathema. But they are ready to embrace it to kill the Maastricht Bill.

Under the party system, MPs are whipped to support measures for which they may have little sympathy. But few at Westminster could find historical parallels for the alliance between the anti-Maastricht rebels and Labour over the social chapter.

'There was a coalition between Michael Foot and Enoch Powell to kill House of Lords reform when they were polar opposites,' one Tory source recalled. 'Michael Foot wanted to abolish the Lords completely and was against reforming it. Enoch wanted to keep it unchanged. They united to stop it. They were pretty odd bedfellows.'

Another occasion was recalled from the 1960s when Lord Callaghan, as Home Secretary, introduced legislation on boundary changes, but it was opposed by Labour, because, it was alleged, it did not want the changes to take place before the next election.

Other MPs had to go back to the coalition government of Lloyd George in 1916 for an example of a similar 'unholy alliance'. 'The Tories absolutely hated Lloyd George, but supported him to stay in power,' one said. The same could have been said for some members of the Thatcher Cabinet.

But expedience in politics is one thing. Ministers believe the spectacle of Tory MPs voting for socialist employment protection is quite another.

(Photograph omitted)