Philip Hammond: Conservatives must 'end the chit chat' and 'focus on the enemy' The matter in hand now was winning the next election, he said. "The message to the party is that we now need to shut down the chit chat, we need to rally round the flag, we need to focus on the enemy, and the enemy sits on the opposition benches, and direct our energy at explaining to the British people why in that battle ahead the choice is Cameron or Miliband. The right answer for the future of Britain is Cameron. As a significant figure on the right of the party, where internal opposition to Mr Cameron is strongest, and a favourite in some quarters as a prospective leader, his rallying call will help shift the balance in the Prime Minister's favour after months of destabilising speculation about his future. In a pointed message to Mr Cameron's enemies on the backbenches, he said the party needed to get out of its "mid term blues." Divided parties lose elections, he said. He also predicted that Tory voters who had turned to Ukip out of frustration with the effects of austerity would return to the fold in time for the 2015 election. Mr Hammond said some Tory backbenchers found being in Coalition with the Liberal Democrats "a challenge." He added: "But what we are seeing though this year, certainly over the last few months, is an increasingly focused mood in the party. Labour "are not out of the race and we have to be focused laser-like on what Labour is doing, on the challenge Labour will present at the next election and how we are going to respond to it." He added: "That's why as a party we need to get ourselves out of this mid term blues period." He said it should focus on setting out its achievements and what it could offer the country in the next parliament "without the constraints of a coalition." He said: "At the next election the choice will be between David Cameron and Ed Miliband as Prime Minister." By next election there will be a "growing body of evidence" that "the robust determination that George Osborne has shown to stick to those difficult decisions are paying dividends." But amid claims that Mr Cameron has struggled with his own side because he did not secure an explicit endorsement from his backbenchers for the Coalition after the 2010 election, Mr Hammond said he would have to consult his MPs if the outcome of the next election led him to want to form another coalition. Party leaders would be asked to set out their plans in advance. "We as a party will come under pressure to do that," he said. I can't imagine that we would get to a situation the day after the election where we would be asking ourselves that question. Because what is quite certain is that we would be required to set out the parameters of what we would do and wouldn't do in different circumstances in the run up to an election. He said it was too early to say what impact Ukip would have on the 2015 election. They benefited from a wave of frustration among people whose living standards had been squeezed by recession and who voted Ukip "as way of venting their frustrations, as way of giving us a bit of kick and sending us a message." He expected they would be voting Tory at the next election. The message we will be sending to those people very clearly is that a vote for Ukip it will be a vote for Ed Miliband. And crucially a vote for Ukip becomes a vote against a referendum on Europe. That will be a pretty powerful message to all but the hardest core of Ukip supporters.