Conservative Party (UK)

Conservative and Unionist Party
LeaderKemi Badenoch
Lords LeaderThe Lord True
Chief Whips
ChairmanNigel Huddleston
The Lord Johnson of Lainston
Chief ExecutiveStephen Massey[1]
Founded
  • 1834; 190 years ago (1834)
    (original form)
  • 9 May 1912; 112 years ago (1912-05-09)
    (current form)
Merger of
Preceded byTories
HeadquartersConservative Campaign Headquarters
4 Matthew Parker Street, London SW1H 9HQ
Youth wingYoung Conservatives[2]
Women's wingConservative Women's Organisation
Overseas wingConservatives Abroad
LGBT wingLGBT+ Conservatives
Membership (November 2024)Decrease 131,680[3]
Ideology
Political positionCentre-right[14] to right-wing[15]
International affiliationInternational Democracy Union
Irish affiliation
Colours  Sky blue
SloganRenew and Rebuild (2024)[16][17]
Governing bodyConservative Party Board
Devolved or semi-autonomous branches
Parliamentary party1922 Committee
House of Commons
121 / 650
House of Lords
272 / 806
Scottish Parliament
31 / 129
Senedd
16 / 60
Regional mayors[nb]
1 / 14
London Assembly
8 / 25
PCCs and PFCCs
19 / 37
Local mayors
1 / 13
Councillors[nb][18]
5,104 / 18,766
Website
conservatives.com
  • ^ Councillors of local authorities in England (including 25 aldermen of the City of London) and Scotland, principal councils in Wales and local councils in Northern Ireland.

The Conservative and Unionist Party, commonly the Conservative Party and colloquially known as the Tories,[19] is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. Following defeat by Labour in the 2024 general election, it is currently the second largest political party by the number of votes cast and number of seats in the House of Commons, followed by the Liberal Democrats. As the second largest party, it has the formal parliamentary role of the Official Opposition. The party sits on the right-wing[15] to centre-right[38][discuss] of the political spectrum. It encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatives. There have been twenty Conservative prime ministers. The party traditionally holds the annual Conservative Party Conference during party conference season, at which senior Conservative figures promote party policy.

The Conservative Party was founded in 1834 from the Tory Party and was one of two dominant political parties in the 19th century, along with the Liberal Party. Under Benjamin Disraeli, it played a preeminent role in politics at the height of the British Empire. In 1912, the Liberal Unionist Party merged with the party to form the Conservative and Unionist Party. Rivalry with the Labour Party has shaped modern British politics for the last century. David Cameron sought to modernise the Conservatives after his election as leader in 2005, and the party governed from 2010 to 2024 under five prime ministers, latterly Rishi Sunak.

The party has generally adopted liberal economic policies favouring free markets since the 1980s, although historically it advocated for protectionism. The party is British unionist, opposing a united Ireland as well as Scottish and Welsh independence, and has been critical of devolution. Historically, the party supported the continuance and maintenance of the British Empire. The party has taken various approaches towards the European Union (EU), with eurosceptic and, to a decreasing extent, pro-European factions within it. Historically, the party took a socially conservative approach.[39][40] In defence policy, it supports an independent nuclear weapons programme and commitment to NATO membership.

For much of modern British political history, the United Kingdom exhibited a wide urban–rural political divide;[41] the Conservative Party's voting and financial support base has historically consisted primarily of homeowners, business owners, farmers, real estate developers and middle class voters, especially in rural and suburban areas of England.[42][43][44][45][46] Since the EU referendum in 2016, the Conservatives targeted working class voters from traditional Labour strongholds.[47][48][49][50] The Conservatives' domination of British politics throughout the 20th century made it one of the most successful political parties in the Western world.[51][52][53][54] The most recent period of Conservative government was marked by extraordinary political turmoil.[55]

  1. ^ Croft, Ethan (11 November 2022). "Rishi Sunak donor gets top job with the Tories". Evening Standard. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  2. ^ Wilkins, Jessica (17 March 2018). "Conservatives re-launch youth wing in a bid to take on Labour". PoliticsHome.com. Archived from the original on 9 July 2019. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  3. ^ Walker, Peter (2 November 2024). "Kemi Badenoch wins Tory leadership election". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 3 November 2024.
  4. ^ "Capping welfare and working to control immigration". Conservative and Unionist Party. Archived from the original on 9 June 2016. Retrieved 1 July 2016.
  5. ^ [4]
  6. ^ Bale, Tim (2011). The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron. p. 145.
  7. ^ [6]
  8. ^ David Dutton, "Unionist Politics and the aftermath of the General Election of 1906: A Reassessment." Historical Journal 22#4 (1979): 861–76.
  9. ^ McConnel, James (17 February 2011). "Irish Home Rule: An imagined future". BBC. Archived from the original on 4 August 2021. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  10. ^ [8][9]
  11. ^ Falkenbach, Michelle; Greer, Scott (7 September 2021). The Populist Radical Right and Health
    National Policies and Global Trends    . Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. p. 143. ISBN 9783030707095.
  12. ^ a b James, William (1 October 2019). "Never mind the politics, get a Brexit deal done, says UK business". Reuters. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
  13. ^ a b Vries, Catherine; Hobolt, Sara; Proksch, Sven-Oliver; Slapin, Jonathan (2021). Foundations of European Politics A Comparative Approach. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198831303.
  14. ^ [11][12][13]
  15. ^ a b [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]
  16. ^ Boulton, Adam (1 October 2024). "Tory party conference is a peculiar affair". Reaction. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
  17. ^ Timan, Joseph (2 October 2024). "'I thought I'd see lots of sad Tories at the Conservative conference - only the weather was miserable'". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
  18. ^ "Open Council Data UK". opencouncildata.co.uk. Archived from the original on 30 April 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
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  20. ^ Keating, Michael (2024). "Scotland's Constitutional Odyssey". In Cremades, Javier; Hermida, Cristina (eds.). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Constitutionalism. London/Berlin: Springer Nature. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-31739-7. ISBN 978-3-319-31739-7. It was also, like the Labour Party at the same time, able to play the European center-left against the dominant rightwing Conservative Party.
  21. ^ Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart J. (February 2023). "Do Opportunistic Snap Elections Affect Political Trust? Evidence from a Natural Experiment". European Journal of Political Research. 62 (1). New York/Oxford: Wiley: 308–325. doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12531. H2a assumes right-leaning voters are congruent with the incumbent right-wing Conservative party
  22. ^ Saini, Rima; Bankole, Michael; Begum, Neema (April 2023). "The 2022 Conservative Leadership Campaign and Post-racial Gatekeeping". Race & Class. 65 (2): 55–74. doi:10.1177/03063968231164599. ISSN 0306-3968. ...the Conservative Party's history in incorporating ethnic minorities, and the recent post-racial turn within the party whereby increasing party diversity has coincided with an increasing turn to the Right
  23. ^ Bale, Tim (March 2023). The Conservative Party After Brexit: Turmoil and Transformation. Cambridge: Polity. pp. 3–8, 291, et passim. ISBN 9781509546015. Archived from the original on 14 September 2023. Retrieved 12 September 2023. [...] rather than the installation of a supposedly more 'technocratic' cabinet halting and even reversing any transformation on the part of the Conservative Party from a mainstream centre-right formation into an ersatz radical right-wing populist outfit, it could just as easily accelerate and accentuate it. Of course, radical right-wing populist parties are about more than migration and, indeed, culture wars more generally. Typically, they also put a premium on charismatic leadership and, if in office, on the rights of the executive over other branches of government and any intermediate institutions. And this is exactly what we have seen from the Conservative Party since 2019
  24. ^ de Geus, Roosmarijn A.; Shorrocks, Rosalind (2022). "Where Do Female Conservatives Stand? A Cross-National Analysis of the Issue Positions and Ideological Placement of Female Right-Wing Candidates". In Och, Malliga; Shames, Shauna; Cooperman, Rosalyn (eds.). Sell-Outs or Warriors for Change? A Comparative Look at Conservative Women in Politics in Democracies. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. pp. 1–29. ISBN 9781032346571. right-wing parties are also increasing the presence of women within their ranks. Prominent female European leaders include Theresa May (until recently) and Angela Merkel, from the right-wing Conservative Party in the UK and the Christian Democratic Party in Germany respectively.
  25. ^ Alonso, José M.; Andrews, Rhys (September 2020). "Political Ideology and Social Services Contracting: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design" (PDF). Public Administration Review. 80 (5). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell: 743–754. doi:10.1111/puar.13177. S2CID 214198195. In particular, there is a clear partisan division between the main left-wing party (Labour) and political parties with pronounced pro-market preferences, such as the right-wing Conservative Party
  26. ^ Alzuabi, Raslan; Brown, Sarah; Taylor, Karl (October 2022). "Charitable behaviour and political affiliation: Evidence for the UK". Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics. 100. Amsterdam: Elsevier: 101917. doi:10.1016/j.socec.2022.101917. ...alignment to the Liberal Democrats (centre to left wing) and the Green Party (left wing) are positively associated with charitable behaviour at both the extensive and intensive margins, relative to being aligned with the right wing Conservative Party.
  27. ^ Oleart, Alvaro (2021). "Framing TTIP in the UK". Framing TTIP in the European Public Spheres: Towards an Empowering Dissensus for EU Integration. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 153–177. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-53637-4_6. ISBN 978-3-030-53636-7. S2CID 229439399. Archived from the original on 3 October 2023. Retrieved 14 September 2023. the right-wing Conservative Party in government supported TTIP...This logic reproduced also a government-opposition dynamic, whereby the right-wing Conservative Party championed the agreement
  28. ^ The Editorial Board (3 November 2024). "The Conservatives' Deepening Turn to the Right". Financial Times. London: The FT Ltd.
  29. ^ Walker, Peter (1 August 2022). "Righter than Right: Tories' Hardline Drift May Lose the Public". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 24 August 2022.
  30. ^ Bale, Tim (2018). "Who leads and who follows? The symbiotic relationship between UKIP and the Conservatives – and populism and Euroscepticism". Politics. 38 (3): 263–277. doi:10.1177/0263395718754718. ISSN 0263-3957. This article makes clear that UKIP's achievement cannot be understood without taking into account both the populist interventions and the internal politics of its mainstream centre-right competitor. We cannot, in other words, understand populist Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom unless we appreciate that, as this article has shown, the Conservatives, not UKIP, were the United Kingdom's first populist Eurosceptic party...
  31. ^ Widfeldt, Anders; Brandenburg, Heinz (2018). "What Kind of Party Is the UK Independence Party? The Future of the Extreme Right in Britain or Just Another Tory Party?". Political Studies. 66 (3): 577–600. doi:10.1177/0032321717723509. ISSN 0032-3217. As far as socio-demographics and attitudes are concerned, the basis of UKIP support comes across as much more similar to that of BNP than of the Conservatives. ... The unfolding plot from the previous section implies that while BNP supporters come across as relatively homogeneous in their – largely positive – evaluations of UKIP, not all UKIP supporters seem to reciprocate. There could, therefore, be significant variations in how they relate to both the extreme right and the moderate centre-right neighbour.
  32. ^ Webb, Paul; Bale, Tim (2014). "Why Do Tories Defect to UKIP? Conservative Party Members and the Temptations of the Populist Radical Right". Political Studies. 62 (4): 961–970. doi:10.1111/1467-9248.12130. ISSN 0032-3217. For one thing, as we have already suggested, the problems posed by UKIP for the Conservatives are akin to those posed to other European centre-right parties by populist radical right challengers: there is no prima facie reason to think that if large numbers of the Tory rank-and-file are considering switching their vote to UKIP that the same does not apply to, say, members of the ÖVP in Austria (who might switch to the FPÖ), or of the Dutch VVD and CDA (who might vote for the PVV), or of Denmark's Venstre (who might cast their ballot for the DF), or of KOK in Finland (who might be tempted by the Finns Party), or even of the French UMP (who might plump for Marine Le Pen's FN).
  33. ^ Ford, Robert; Goodwin, Matthew J.; Cutts, David (2012). "Strategic Eurosceptics and polite xenophobes: Support for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2009 European Parliament elections". European Journal of Political Research. 51 (2): 204–234. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.2011.01994.x. ISSN 0304-4130. The more strident Euroscepticism of the Conservative Party under David Cameron, who has withdrawn the party from the pro-integration European People's Party, appointed the strongly Eurosceptic William Hague as foreign secretary and at the 2010 general election fielded the most Eurosceptic slate of Westminster candidates in recent history, suggest the centre-right Tories have recognised the discontent among strategic UKIP supporters and are attempting to win them back.
  34. ^ Carter, Neil; Pearson, Mitya (22 November 2022). "From green crap to net zero: Conservative climate policy 2015–2022". British Politics. 19: 154–174. doi:10.1057/s41293-022-00222-x. ISSN 1746-918X. PMC 9684876. PMID 38625241. European centre-right parties often face common strategic challenges, such as competition from the radical right, but the UK Conservative Party case study shows that responding to these challenges does not necessarily demand the abandonment of climate commitments.
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  36. ^ Abou-Chadi, Tarik; Cohen, Denis; Wagner, Markus (2021). "The centre-right versus the radical right: the role of migration issues and economic grievances". Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 48 (2): 366–384. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2020.1853903. Specifically, the centre-right contains Christian Democratic parties such as the German CDU, Conservative parties such as the British Tories or the French Gaullists, and classically Liberal parties such as Venstre in Denmark or the VVD in the Netherlands.
  37. ^ Kenny, Paul D; Miller, Charles (2020). "Does asylum seeker immigration increase support for the far right? Evidence from the United Kingdom, 2000–2015". Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 48 (7): 1629–1646. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2020.1776596. Although more moderate than either the BNP or UKIP, the center-right Conservative Party has been consistently more restrictive on immigration than other mainstream parties, namely the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.
  38. ^ [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][12][13]
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