This chapter covers the initial skirmishes between the Government and anti-Marketeers during committee stage of the EC Bill. It examines how Pym’s whipping strategy developed through the use of procedural tactics. The Chief Whip’s strategy involved working towards a guillotine motion; cutting the amount of time available to anti-Marketeers to scrutinise the various clauses and propose and vote on critical amendments, and reducing the danger of government defeats and the unravelling of the Bill at report stage. The chapter also considers the challenges of day-to-day party management, including the importance of intelligence gathering and organisation in securing consistent government majorities in the division lobbies. It discusses the distinction the whips made in characterising three core components of the Parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) on the European issue and how this affected different approaches: the diehard dissenters (‘shits’) who were identified as unpersuadable in their determination to persist in casting dissenting votes; the loyalist majority (‘robusts’) who could be relied upon to vote with the government but needed organising to ensure attendance; and the key group of wavering or uncertain dissenters (‘wets’) who were targeted for persuasion. The final section of the chapter evaluates the party management problems that derived from the Northern Ireland troubles, and how this affected the dissenting behaviour of the Ulster Unionist MPs who took the Conservative whip at this time.