It must be understood that it is not just the message of ‘get Brexit done’ that provided such an overwhelming majority for the Conservatives. As surprising as the Conservative victory might seem to many, particularly where the Conservatives picked up the votes to win in traditional Labour strongholds, elections are not won on practical manifesto pledges but rather through dominating a national narrative. This is something the Conservatives have monopolised well over recent years.
This dominance has been the culmination of an overwhelming control of a symbolic national narrative dictated and controlled by the conservative right. Practicalities of politics matter little here. The point being that key right-wing conservative tropes of Euroscepticism and anti-immigration rhetoric have become the common ground of ‘British’ politics and sense of national narrative, this being particularly resonant within England.
