George Osborne’s plan for this referendum was to turn it into a question of the future versus the past, for both the country and the Tory party. He wanted the voters to see the Out campaign as a bunch of people who wanted to take Britain back to a bygone era. Inside the Tory party, his aim was to have the talent and the ambition on the IN side with only old war horses and the passed over and bitter on the other side.
But the events of the past 36 hours have blown this plan off course. Out now has one of the most popular politicians in the country on board in Boris, as well as one of the intellectual driving forces behind Tory modernisation and the party’s new social justice agenda in Gove.
This referendum campaign will now be about two competing versions of the future for both the country and the Tory party.
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