Don't panic: a nice bit of policy will sort Ukip out. Voices on the Tory right urges not one EU referendum but two. Those close to government emphasise moves on prison "perks", and items in this week's Queen's speech that will deal with immigrants' access to benefits and the NHS. Meanwhile, pundits and politicians from all sides claim that Nigel Farage's grab-bag of proposals will fall apart under close scrutiny, and the menace will recede.

Well, maybe. Real politics is built on emotion and tribal affinity rather than policy – and on this score, Ukip excels. So full of chutzpah and mischief that he is talking about fantastical Ukip-Tory pacts, Farage knows the people for whom his party now speaks: English conservatives, with both a small and large "C", disproportionately found in the south-eastern working class (quite an achievement for a son of a stockbroker, alumnus of Dulwich College and former banker, but there we are). If you think the country has lost its way thanks to a cosseted political class, that immigration and so-called welfare are at the heart of the problem, and that the Tories have little understanding of life as it actually lived, then you may well have voted Ukip as matter of visceral instinct.

Last week, I spent time with Ukip in Essex, where the party won nine council seats. At least half of them were ex-Tories, from decidedly non-posh backgrounds. I spoke to a few of their newly converted voters, too. At first, it was strange having so many conversations with people convinced that the Conservatives had lost their way, and sold out their old heartlands: what, I wondered, of the government's unrelenting benefits crackdown, or their clear wish to shrink the state? But in such towns as Wickford, Billericay and Rayleigh, the disaffection of an entire social tribe runs much deeper than that.

The Conservatives have frayed their bond with what one pundit has called "Tebbit Tories" [paywall link], who look at David Cameron and George Osborne and see a grim cultural hybrid, which is alienating beyond words: public-school conceit mixed with the kind of metropolitan smarminess that Tony Blair and his disciples stretched to snapping point. Worse still, the new Tory elite's distance from the nitty gritty is reflected in their lack of any kind of firm offer to so many of their own voters – what, you wonder, does the modern Conservative party think it can do for them?

There are plenty of occasions when the absurdity of the Tories' predicament is revealed, though too few people seem to notice. When, for instance, Osborne recently popped up at a branch of Morrisons affecting a glottal stop and explaining the downsides of the benefits system ("Briddish people badly wannit fixed," as one Telegraph writer translated it), did he have any idea how awful it looked, not least to the people he was gauchely trying to reach? Some of his and Cameron's adversaries seem to know what the essential problem is: even if the Tories' politics and economics remain essentially Thatcherite, given the backgrounds – if not the entire worldview – of the current leadership, the medium cancels out the message.

"We have to break this impression of being privileged and out of touch," said that bona fide working-class Tory David Davis over the weekend, doubtless aware that a good way of showing how annoyed you are is to demand the impossible. He and his supporters presumably well know that even if Ukip is squeezed at the general election, all this will remain a huge issue: certainly, I know Westminster insiders who think it was an overlooked factor in the Tories' inability to win in 2010.

If you appreciate the old political brilliance the Tories have so mislaid, you will understand why some view all this as a mounting tragedy. We are talking, let us not forget, about the party that wised up to the end of deference by collectively acknowledging that the era of grouse moors and patrician arrogance was drawing to a close, and placed millions of ordinary Britons at the heart of its most successful phase – partly thanks to the sale of council houses, the kind of populist masterstroke that the Cameroons can only dream about. If you read the best histories of the 1980s, it's all there: in One of Us, the late Hugo Young quotes Norman Tebbit paying tribute to people "who want to own things, make choices, live decently", and describes how the Thatcherites' "patchy economic record" could always be trumped by "an attitude – the attitude Thatcher herself could trace directly back to Grantham".

Where is that attitude now? A couple of cabinet members – Eric Pickles, and the transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, a former coal miner – still personify it, but they are hardly at the heart of things. Similarly, there are traces of up-by-the-bootstraps grit on the Tory backbenches, although the silver-spooned beneficiaries of the infamous A-list have all but smothered them.

Those who still admire Cameron and his circle would argue that the red-raw Conservatism that Ukip now voice will only attract an insufficient share of an electorate becoming ever-more urban, liberal and socially diverse. To which the answer is: this argument is as much about style as substance, and the fact that if you want to bang on about hard work, aspiration and opportunity, it might be an idea to find people with experience of what they actually mean. In other words, even if some degree of "modernisation" was imperative, was it the wisest move to select a public-school clique to do it?

All this seems to be haunting the collective Tory soul, but note some other developments. Among Cameron's recent moves has been the recruitment to policy roles of the Etonian MPs Jesse Norman (last heard putting the chumocracy down to his old school's "commitment to public service") and Jo Johnson. And even among those who recognise the Tory malaise, there is that incessant chorus claiming that the best way to cure the Tories' ills is to hand the leadership to the latter's big brother Boris.

That particular Old Etonian undoubtedly has assets Cameron and Osborne lack: apparent human warmth, the ability to give the appearance of straight-taking, a giant and Farage-ish personal brand, and – oh yes – an ability to win elections. He is securely stitched into the new establishment, while giving the impression he is some kind of out-there maverick. Farage and Ukip's treasurer have been making appreciative noises about him; if the Tories' difficulties worsen, the somewhat banal idea that he is the answer will presumably gain currency. If it does, I would gently prescribe a simple course of action: any tempted Conservatives should spend a few days outside London, understand the profundity of their problems, and give it a little bit more thought.