Steve Hilton coming out so strongly for Brexit is important for two reasons. First, it is a reminder that the idea that, within the Tory party, this referendum is the modernisers versus the right is far too crude. There are Tory modernisers on both sides of this argument. Indeed, given the importance of localism to Tory modernisation and its appreciation that there’s a difference between being pro-big business and pro-market, there are thoroughly modernising reasons for wanting the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.
Hilton also details how it was the experience of government that tipped many Tories into backing Brexit. It was the discovery of just how much the European Union limited what they could do in office that made them believe that the UK should leave. As Hilton puts it, on coming into government in 2010 the Tories were ‘little prepared for the sheer scale’ of the constraints that the EU imposes.
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