The Tories have always been a broad church that has worn many different guises over its existence. It is the most successful political party on earth because its mantra is, it exists to be in power. It shifts comfortably with the times and changes because of events, because of its belief it is the natural party of government. Ideologically it has never been captured by one particular strand of Conservatism, it has historically always had elements of the different strands from One Nation Toryism to Nationalist Tories.
If you look back on the issue of the EU, Labour under Foot were in favour of leaving, the Tories were staunch remain, they under Thatcher created the single market and Labour were forced into a position of acceptance of the EU. I would argue that the success of Blair and his pro EU stance forced the Tories into an anti-EU stance, that allied with devolution helped create the English question. England is unique in the UK as it has no Parliament and that allowed the rise of English Nationalism which was exploited by Farage. English identity became an issue, the Tories understood that, the Labour party with its internationalist approach never grasped it. As a result the Tories have become basically an English Nationalist party, that has helped the rise of fear of immigration because English identity has no way of expressing itself. Cameron tried to solve the problem by introducing EVEL , but it was too late and the door was open for the more extreme nationalist element to take control of the Tory party which was aided and abetted by Johnson's purge of the Tory Pro EU MPs like Hammond. Its rare a Chancellor of the Exchequer disappears without trace so quickly.
Johnson having done a lot of the lying about the EU through his time at the Telegraph was the perfect man to take control of a party now in thrall to the English nationalists and and the Pro Leave faction. The one nation Tories have been marginalised and all the MPs they have left now show loyalty to Johnson. Johnson is no idealogue, but he does have the one value that Tories have always believed in, the right to power.
What i believe scares the current Tory party, is that if Johnson is removed then the whole party will collapse, there are no obvious candidates to replace him, that is why they are so desperate to keep him in place, because power is what they believe in.
I could explain this further, but not got time at the moment. If interested in this though Fintan O'Toole wrote about it in his book "Heroic Failure" and you can find him on you tube discussing it. His insights are fascinating
Interesting take but doesn't add up.
The Tories always had a two-faced relationship with the EU. Signing up to the treaties but blaming domestic problems on the EU or breaking laws for political purposes.
en.wikipedia.org
Brexit was a continuation of the pervasive neo-liberalism of the modern Tories not a sea change.
I don't believe it is about English nationalism either, nationalist and racistand xenophobia sentiment may have been on the rise but this isn't the same as English nationalism. Only a small cross section of the population actually hold English nationalist views, but dog whistlers and thugs are able to stir the pot for political ends.
British nationalism, of we won the war, and we used to have an empire, and delusions of going it on our own as a "freetrading seafaring nation" have very little to do with EVEL or devolution in Scotland and Wales.
Nationalism is very rarely an organic grassroots movement, unfortunately people with a few braincells missing and/or underlying prejudices are easy to manipulate.
The EU only became a big issue post 2010 when the Tories brought in austerity and pushed Briton's standard of living down, and the Economy slowed down more than it would have already post 2008.
The UKIP incendancy via by-elections pushed Cameron into believing he needed to take the sting out of them. He overplayed his hand and lost.
Had a referendum never have been promised and politicians taken responsibility for solving the domestic issues that was being exploited by Europhobes maybe UKIP would have eventually run out of steam.
The essential fact about Brexit is that it has no concrete destination . For racists and bigots it meant send em all back.
For communists and trade union socialist lexiters it meant stalinist socialism in one country because of the liberation from state aid laws.
For the chief backers in vote leave it meant the opportunity for deregulation, tax cuts, freeports and a smaller state. Although they'd never tell you this directly because the Red Wall bigots might wake up and stop supporting it because it runs counter to their interests.