Quote: King Street Cat "There's one thing I can guarantee. Just as the left are accused of saying "Socialism has never worked because it's never been done properly", the Brexit diehards on the right, if not happy by this time next year, will be saying "Brexit could have worked, it just wasn't done properly", despite the fact there are a multitude of outcomes on every shade of the political spectrum. Looking at the extreme ends of the spectrum, I don't see how the same vehicle can be used to achieve a socialist utopia or a capitalist Singapore-on-Thames.'"
This is true, and explains why it will be divisive. But it also contains the potential for continued Tory rule through re-invention, which has been one of the unique factors of this current administration: Theresa May was able to present herself as a break with the Cameron/Osborne era and Boris was able to present himself as a usurper breaking the 'establishment' of May/Hammond and so on.
If Boris goes down the road of trade liberalisation, Singapore-on-Thames approach, and it goes wrong, then as well as the critique from Labour there is the potential for right wing Brexiters to emerge in the Tory party with a Trumpian approach: we should have a trade strategy that puts Britain first, willing to use tariffs and subsidies.
If we go down the 'red Tory' approach, and it goes wrong, then the Singapore-on-Thamesers will reappear and say why on earth did we have a Tory government messing around with things like subsidising failing industries, using energy price caps, state run parts of the rail network and a minimum wage? We need to roll all that kind of nonsense away and have a deregulated, low tax Singapore on Thames.