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Hello, I'm Matthew Price.

This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.

Every day we ask one big question about one big story.

Today, would we have Brexit without the Tories? After that I expect to go to palace and offer my resignation so we'll have a new

Prime Minister?

Do do do, do, do, do,

Right.

When David Cameron lost the referendum and then dumbed

deed his way out of Downing Street, it felt like the beginning of a

story. But it wasn't. It was only part of a decades-long battle

within the Conservative Party over Europe. And if you look back at that battle,

you start to understand why we are, where we are on Brexit today. So we asked Nick

Robinson who presents the today program and for years was the BBC's political editor to take us back to explain how we got here.

When I joined the BBC back in the 80s, one of the first things I did was to write a memo for the editor of the BBC's big politics show back then. I told him Europe will split the Conservative Party as the Corn Lords once split the Party.

You don't need to know the history, but it was an issue that kept the tour as out of power

for decades. It has in many way this story been the story of my adult life and

it's a story if you like that began when Margaret Thatcher campaigned for Europe, campaigned to get us into the forerunner of the European

club, what was then called the common market, wearing a blue jumper with the European stars and flags as well, she told us to vote yes in

1975.

Come on, we want a jumper parade.

It's very fitting that you should keep an all night vigil under the statue of Sir Winston Churchill,

...