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Couple of thoughts on this. Cons have had long-standing problem with EM voters, including Muslims, going back to at least era of Enoch Powell. Rooted in widespread belief among EM voters than Cons at best don’t take prejudice seriously, at worst use it for political gain 1/?
Cons under Cameron made sustained effort to change this longstanding reputation, including appointment of Warsi as party chairman and recruitment of substantial number of EM MPs in safe seats 2/?
This didn't yield much in 2010 or 2015, because engrained and enduring distrust of Cons proved v hard to overcome. Suspicion was that the changes were cosmetic, and if it came to the crunch electorally Cons would indulge majority intolerance rather than side with minorities 3/?
Fast forward to 2017, and Cons under May largely abandon the Cameron strategy and focus instead on winning over UKIP voters by promising hard Brexit and immigration control. But those aren't the only views held by UKIP voters 4/?
Pretty much all forms of prejudice and intolerance - including racism and islamophobia - were found more frequently among 2015 UKIP voters than any other party's supporters. Attracting such voters inevitably meant attracting many with such views into the party 5/?
The price Cons pay for that was already clear in 2017, when Con support fell furthest in diverse seats, and seats with many white graduates, who have liberal views on race, diversity, imm etc - the PM who once warned abt Cons being "nasty party" had retoxified thiem 6/?
Now we see another aspect to that - a party pitching for UKIP voters is also going to recruit activists and members with noxious views on these issues. And in the era of social media omnipresence, those noxious views are going to come to light. 7/?
Which brings us back to Cameron's problem - minorities didn't trust his claims to reform the party. Now, under May, they see that their scepticism was justified. Which makes the job of any future Con PM looking to appeal to EM voters even harder - "fool me once, shame on you..."
And that, in turn, is a big problem for the Cons in the long run because EM share of the electorate is rapidly rising, and so is share of white graduates with liberal views on race and diversity. Party now as toxic with both as it has ever been. 9/?
Cons won office in 2017 by squeezing socially conservative, anti-imm UKIP demographic of white school leavers as far as possible. That group's share of the electorate falls 1% a year. Will grow steadily harder to win elections if that's yr core constituency. 10/?
Which brings us to the Cons dilemma: the kind of drastic action needed to build credibility with sceptical liberals and EMs in future will definitely alienate the voters (and members, activists) the party relies on right now. They can't go forwards LR without going backwards SR
The damage done by May therefore stretches beyond Brexit. She has sharpened an electoral dilemma which Cameron tried ineffectually to resolve, and made life much harder for her successors in the 2020s. /ENDS/
(PS - of course Windrush scandal - the predictable and predicted consequence of a policy designed to appease anti-immigrant UKIP leaning voters - dramatically worsens all of these problems Cons now have with EM voters and white graduates)
