DAVID CAMERON’S supporters have warned him that his policies on Europe are “absolute madness” and will reopen the party’s wounds on its most divisive issue.

His pro-EU followers complain that a policy he has adopted to woo Eurosceptics from his rival, David Davis, is “cloud cuckooland” and will inevitably lead to an open rebellion among the party’s MEPs.

Mr Cameron, the favourite to become Conservative leader, now faces the embarrassing choice of either performing a dramatic U-turn or an insurrection if he is chosen as leader. Conservative MEPs and pro-Europeans in Westminster are furious that Mr Cameron promised that he would take the Tories out of the European People’s Party (EPP), the main right-wing party in the European Parliament, which he believes is too federalist and too anti-European. Instead he proposes to set up a right-wing group in the Strasbourg-based Parliament that is Eurosceptic, free-market and pro-American.

Tory MEPs issued a warning that this would leave them utterly marginalised in Europe, depriving them of all influence and forcing them into ties with racist and neo-fascist parties.

Mr Cameron has won backing from many Eurosceptic MPs since announcing the policy, with Bill Cash, Desmond Swayne and Robert Goodwill joining his camp yesterday. However, he announced the policy without consulting Timothy Kirkhope MEP, the Conservative leader in Europe, who was so alarmed that he insisted on a meeting yesterday in which he set out the consequences to the young leadership hopeful. Under the party’s rules, it can leave the EPP only with the agreement of its leader in Europe.

One Conservative MEP said: “Most of the MEPs think this is absolute madness.”

Another predicted that the majority of Conservative MEPs would rebel by refusing to leave the EPP. “We’re talking about substantial, mainstream Tories. They would defy instruction,” said one. Only 7 of the 26 Conservative MEPs are thought to support the move.

Another MEP said: “Cameron is attacking the very people who would instinctively support him. We just hope he realises he has made a mistake and backs down.”

Despite being seen as Eurosceptic, Mr Davis has made clear that he thinks leaving the EPP is a step too far. All recent party leaders, including Michael Howard, Margaret Thatcher and Iain Duncan Smith, have said the Conservative Party should stay within the EPP in the mainstream of European politics and achieve maximum influence on European legislation. The latest Conservative manifesto promised that the party would remain part of it.

Sir Robert Atkins, the MEP for North West England, a former Conservative minister and a Cameron supporter, has written to local Conservatives describing Mr Cameron’s policies as “cloud cuckooland”.

He gave warning that the Conservative Party would be left in “futile isolation” in the company of an “unappealing ragbag” of far-right, racist and Europhobic fringe parties from Italy, Poland and Denmark. “I, and the great majority of my Conservative colleagues, view that prospect with great distaste,” he wrote.

Another Cameron supporter, Philip Bushill-Mattews, the MEP for the West Midlands, issued a press release last night urging Mr Cameron “not to create new splits over Europe when he should be uniting our party to replace the present Government”.

He said: “My fear is that he has not only shown bad judgment: he has chosen to listen to some very bad advice.”

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