I suppose I have always tried to understand the Brexit fiasco with 2 different ideas. Firstly that the Conservatives ultimately represent the establishment (both political and economic) and therefore that they really don't want to push ahead with Brexit in spite of their dishonest rhetoric.
Thats not to say they don't have working class supporters, members and voters (particularly amongst older members of society). However their core interest group are the top of society. There's clearly a bit of a contradiction between the tw, and this manifests itself on Europe and throws open these contradictions. It's for the most part why most Tory MP's choose to keep Pandora's box shut.
My own view is that they never wanted it to get to this stage. I have said this before so it's not being wise after the event. David Cameron didn't think he could win the election. Even with an enormous error in polling (which I called) it only gave him a tiny, unworkable majority. His hope was to use the threat of Brexit as a stick to beat a Labour government with (possibly propped up by the SNP, so to attack Scotland alongside it to placate southern English voters). The aim was to discredit the Labour Party irreparably with the question.
He then called an early vote, because he could see UKIP were growing in support with each day it went on. He wanted to win the vote and take much of the power out of the UKIP sails. The brevet vote then went the wrong way.
They avoided having a brexiteer as PM. In essence Johnson and Gove completely bottled it and knifed in the back the one man who could have had the vision to get them out of this mess (Osbourne). They couldn't let a Brexiteer like Leadsom take the reigns so got a steady Remainer May. May's role when put in was essentially to steer the country away from Brexit, or at least towards a soft brexit.
She was too thick to understand this and went native in her role and immediately started spouting off inane catch phrases like "brevet means brevet" and "will of the people" painfully unaware that these words would only add pressure to her down the line. (I have mer activists close to May and can confirm she is known to be that thick, and these people said it when most Tories were desperately trying to paint her as somewhere between Thatcher and Boudicia).
I don't think they ever comprehended having a Labour opposition not opposing Brexit. I think for many Tory MP's (and particularly their aids, generally with an undergrad in politics or a masters at best) they could not begin to grasp the idea of a left critique of the EU. So there is some defence that they are completely flummoxed by this idea and have a dualities of blindspots-both in having an awareness of politics prior to 1979 or alternatively being able to read any bog standard political book in the Oxbridge libraries. I'd also suggest they felt Corbyn would be ousted by now and hence why they put so much effort into doing it. He really is their worst nightmare on this as he doesn't fall for any of their traps (not because he's some sort of genius, just because he's principled).
Through this whole process May has been waiting for Labour to concede it wants to overturn Brexit. That would then have allowed him to pitch her offer as the great defence of Brexit and pipe down most of the ERG. For their part, they are their to give an ideological clarity, to criticise but not undermine the Conservative Party and provide shape for a future critique of Labour (and ultimately prevent too many vote losses to Ukip). At no point where they meant to be turning on May, or their somewhat elitist ideas around political cohesion to ever become mainstream points.
What you now have is a party with no idea what to do. The ERG in spite of the rhetoric don't want to depose May. They have no plan and would bring further embarrassment to the Conservatives if they ended up in power. This can be seen by the fact that in spite of 6 months of "growing stronger" the number of rebels appears at about 40 as it always has been and that they have done the square root of zero with this opposition.
It was telling that Kuenssberg (essentially the governments mouthpiece) said something along the lines of "they (the ERG) need to be careful, as they might accidentally end up with a leadership contest here". We can only surmise from that that a leadership contest is not the desirable outcome and never has been. What is their purpose then? I would suggest to pontificate and give the impression of a group wanting to be oppositional but in actuality do very little.
And thats where we are now. A Tory party who has had it's bluff called by a semi-competent hippy. Cameron gambled on Miliband taking his problems away. The Tories gambled on Cameron being the fall guy. Cameron gambled on Osbourne being the fall guy. The Party then felt May would be the fall guy. May then wanted Labour to be the fall guy. And they are now left squarely in a terrible hole without any clear path what to do next.
While there's no doubt personal agency makes some difference (Gove is slimy, Johnson is ineffective, Davies incompetent and May useless) the underlying issues are structural for them.
As I keep saying, binning May off will not be the answer. The people who say it will be are the same people who said May would be the answer. She wasn't, they were wrong and will be wrong again.
