For those bristling under a near-decade of Tory rule, what should disturb most about the Tories’ annual gathering? Priti Patel’s bitter broadside against the “north London, metropolitan, liberal elite” and her look of sadistic delight as she pledged to “end the free movement of people once and for all”? The crowd of Tory members, faces contorted with fury, angrily booing and jeering when a journalist dared to challenge Boris Johnson’s cruel appropriation of Jo Cox’s memory? Or what about when Johnson addressed a party reception and began a sentence about Jeremy Corbyn with “We’ll invite him to enter …”, and delegates finished his sentence with “traitors’ gate” and “a noose”?

No. What should truly chill is that this gaggle – intoxicated with an authoritarian brand of nationalism – could win the coming electoral clash, and transform the country in their own image.

The Tory populists crave an election that is a culture war. This is a trap Labour must do well to avoid

The Tories are undoubtedly in crisis, but thanks to the Brexit culture war their opposition has fractured and their membership has grown substantially – albeit far below Labour’s level – and the party has shaken off its Theresa May-era gloom. More dangerously, the Tories have understood and embraced the spirit of the age: that disillusionment with the existing order is a default sentiment for millions, crossing generations, class, gender, race and nationality. Their crude rightwing populism – which May uneasily and ineffectively flirted with – is ugly, and indeed dangerous, because it relies on a narrative that the nation is being undermined by traitors and saboteurs. But the Tory populists also understand that in an era of national turmoil, people quite understandably expect to know who is responsible, and for them to be held to account: Britain’s political, economic and social crises are not weather systems or acts of God after all, but caused by the decisions of powerful actors.

The Tory populists blame the wrong targets but ensure that anger is directed away from those whom they exist to represent – principally the business interests who lavish them with funds and expect a return on their investment. It also allows them to sap the Corbyn project’s class-based anti-elite sense of insurgency. They do this by presenting Labour as being on the side of the anti-democratic, anti-“will of the people”, remainer establishment.

Members of the old Cameron-Osborne ascendancy were exiled at the conference to poorly attended fringes. But, while downcast, they struck a note of defiance, reminding delegates that 4 million Tory voters backed remain, and so are likely to be repelled by the party’s current trajectory. I remember meeting a middle-aged shire Tory a couple of days after the referendum, her mascara still smudged from weeping over defeat. A few months later, however, she loyally voted for a Tory party preaching “no deal is better than a bad deal” and an exit from the customs union and single market alike – as did many like her.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Boris Johnson and his partner Carrie Symonds after his conference speech Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/EPA

True, too many Brexiteer excesses and provocations have driven some to the Liberal Democrats since then. But we also know from polling that millions of Tory voters support public ownership of utilities and higher taxes on the rich and big business, yet still stick with the party because other political considerations take priority, and the same must go for Tory remainers. They may want to stay in the EU, but will still choose British Trumpism rather than a different party offering increased taxes on the well-off and a new referendum.

Observing the strengths of your opponent is a precondition to defeating them. Indeed, the populist fervour directed against anyone obstructing Brexit is currently benefiting Johnson and the Tory right. But when I attended a Brexit party rally earlier this year, when Nigel Farage uttered Johnson’s name, the crowd responded with boos and even shouts of “traitor”, mostly on account of his vote for May’s withdrawal agreement. When I asked Tory delegates in Manchester this week whether they trusted Johnson, even some of his supporters struggled to answer affirmatively. One day, he and his allies will be consumed by the very anger they themselves have stirred up, as May and Cameron were before them.

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The Tory populists crave an election that is a culture war more than anything else. This is a trap Labour would do well to avoid. That doesn’t mean abandoning the struggle to defend progressive social and cultural norms, of course, which were fought for by women, people of colour and LGBTQ people. Many younger people flocked to Labour in 2017 partly because of an economic order that has robbed them of financial security, but also because they rightly felt that the Tory Brexiteers were waging a counterrevolution against values they treasured. But above all else, Labour’s best hope is to focus on class-based populism – pithily summed up by its “many not the few” slogan.

Some “centrist” critics of Johnson believe in a strategy of simply exposing his falsehoods, his inflammatory language and his unworkable plans. But rightwing populism cannot be fact-checked out of political existence, either here or in the US. Who triumphs in the next election will partly be determined by who can most authentically claim to represent the majority against the forces of an entitled establishment.

Tory populism may be drenched in deceit, but its potency should not be underestimated. The Tory right are reshaping their party in their own image: the danger is that next, they will do the same to the country.

• Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist