EVEN as John Major fought desperately to keep the lid on Conservative divisions on Europe this week, one of his most popular backbenchers was busily working to defeat his efforts, stirring up anti-Brussels sentiment in the Tory heartlands of Essex.
But then, as far as Europe is concerned, Teresa Gorman flipped her lid a long time ago. "John doesn't worry too much about me any more," she says, as she works her way at relentless pace through some of the 44,000 doorbells of greater Billericay. "At least he knows where I stand."
In fact, the Pitsea area in which she is canvassing is not natural Conservative territory. Added to the constituency since the last election, its council house estates will not add much to her vote, but even with a notional majority of 20,000-plus, she is taking no chances.
Dressed in what looks like a metallic blue three-quarter-length sleeping bag, she bounds energetically from door to door, hitting her targets with short, sharp bursts of electioneering. "I find it helps to shout. I made my living for years teaching people who weren't very bright and teaching English to foreigners. I'm one of the best communicators in the House of Commons, even if they don't seem to appreciate me."
The same approach to language informs her election literature. She carries two kinds of leaflets, the first a glossy one for "classy areas, which lists Britain's achievements under the Tories, the second a simpler affair, with three questions in stark black and white:
1. Do you want to keep the pound?
2. Do you want to save Britain's independence from unelected foreigners? 3. Do you want to keep border controls, or have anyone who likes coming here and living off our benefits?
"You have to know your market," she says, and she certainly does. Her recent appearance on the Mrs Merton TV show was designed with Pitsea in mind.
"They don't watch the 9 o'clock News or Newsnight, you see. But after Mrs Merton, I was like a pop star here.
It is to the questions on Europe she falls back whenever she meets a reticent or confused constituent, and the answers are invariably the ones she wants. But there is plenty of uninvited anti-Brussels feeling on the doorsteps, even if it is couched in vague terms. One woman complains about the "Belgians" running Britain. Another exhorts her to "keep us out of the Common Market". One man suggests it is already too late for Britain, and bemoans the loss of India.
As the canvassing party doubles back along a road, the woman who dislikes the Belgians re-emerges from her doorway. "One more thing," she shouts. "Why don't you work with the PM instead of against him?"
Clearly, Mr Major's appeal has found some sympathy, but not from Mrs Gorman.
"He's the Prime Minister, for God's sake," she says when the door closes again. "You've got to be a bit of a bastard to be PM. If he hasn't got the balls to make his views known, that's his problem. He's too nice and polite, even to me. I used to be scared stiff of Margaret."
Even with a challenge from an opponent describing himself as "loyal Conservative" ("He's pro-European," confides one of her assistants, in the same way one might say: "He's a Jehovah's Witness"), Mrs Gorman's seat is as safe as any.
But this election is still one too many for her. Not being a "typical party apparatchik," as she describes her fellow graduate of the 1987 election, Gillian Shephard, she feels 10 years as a backbencher without promotion prospects is enough. But she's staying on, "to see this Europe thing out".
And she is confident the issue has swung irrevocably her way.
"Whatever the result, there's going to be a large group of MPs going back to the House of Commons who will want to pull us out of the EU altogether."