Europe has helped to destroy five of the past six Conservative prime ministers: Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and now David Cameron. It was not meant to be like this.
When Mr Cameron became leader in 2005, he hoped to stop his party “banging on” about Europe so that it could engage with the real needs of voters. Despite the outcome of the EU referendum, his legacy is unlikely to be defined by Europe as Anthony Eden’s is by the Suez crisis of 1956.
The Tories were in a parlous state in 2005. They were no longer the natural party of government, having lost three consecutive elections. Their support was concentrated among the elderly and the socially and geographically immobile. They were anathema to ethnic minorities and students. Since Tony Blair won his landslide majority in 1997 for the Labour party, the Conservatives had lost ground in constituencies where the proportion of university graduates was above average. By 2005, they were the third party among students, behind the Liberal Democrats, and seen by many, as Theresa May pointed out, as the “nasty party”.