If the "few people of quality and influence" don't realize they can't have CAP and a nationalistic message then they are stupider than I thought.  

But, then, the "few people of quality and influence," at least as I can tell from afar, have been operating under a strategy that attempts to skim the economic benefits of EU membership - for them - while fighting, and with all the Opt-Outs granted by the EU: winning, to limit the economic benefits for the British public as well as the social/political benefits.  I suspect the nationalistic message is intended to achieve the latter.

Long Term this strategy is meta-stable as it is inherently self-contradictory.  I be a' thinking your Ruling Class is either going to have to give-up CAP (economic benefits of EU membership) or the British Exceptionalism message.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre