Rascal
El Presidente
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
