Well in truth if the Tory party had listened to half its membership in the early 90's UKIP would probably not have exisited. The fact the country continued down a path for over 20 years where it was often diametrically opposed to its EU partners ( The Euro, Schenghen, The kilometere, The Kilogram). To many the EU was still patatable until 2004 when a significant number of former Eastern Bloc countries joined and the dynamic was changed forever as was the average wage of members states. That led to a significant shift in numbers coming from theose countries to this country and gave UKIP another gong to bang. Post 2004 all the UKIP fears appeared to be coming true and it is no coinicidence that they gained popularity even if they were a complete one trick pony. UKIPs rise can be blamed on both Conservative and Labour governments for failing to understand and in several cases failing to address the concerns of a significant number of Britains over Europe. If there was to be a Leave referendum,then 2004-2007 would have been the right time. I know its completely hypothetical and I can prove nothing but I truly believe remain woukd have won the day then. The upshot would have been that the warning shot would have been fired across the EU bows and maybe, just maybe have tempered the ambition that led to the "federal states of Europe" claims on which UKIP did gain a groundswell of support. History will show, I believe that there were a number of opportiunities to clip UKIP in the bud but successive governments failed to properly assess the mood of the country and failed to assess the direction the EU was going. Add to that a recession and a weak prime minister in Cameron who agreed a binary referendum without any plans or foundation for what would happen if he lost, and you end up with the shit storm we have now. I say this as a brexiter. Its a fucking mess. It was always going to be given the backlog or catalogue of missed opportunities , in my view. But just because its a bit bloody tricky doesnt mean they can weasel out of it.