A key part of the Tory platform was the promise of an EU referendum by 2017. It was vital to winning back disaffected Conservatives who had embraced Ukip, and it played a big role in the “don’t waste your vote” campaign in the final days of the election. It turned out to be a smart move: euroscepticism has been growing in Britain since the Crash and the fast decline of the Eurozone and there’s a feeling out there that the relationship between Westminster and Brussels needs to be renegotiated. The issue isn’t just related to who writes what laws – the bête noire of the Right that is flung around with varying degrees of accuracy. Indeed, people may not have consciously, explicitly voted with Europe in mind. But Ukip has helped to tie Europe closer to immigration in people's minds by making the case that membership of the EU is responsible for mass migration – along with crowded hospitals, anarchic schools, falling wages, declining blue collar employment. In other words, the commitment to hold an EU referendum represents in the minds of many voters the chance to “get our country back” in the broadest possible sense. It is one of the biggest and most important battles in the culture war.