Conservative party

a political party in Great Britain founded about 1832 as successor to the Tory party and characterized by moderate progressivism.

* * *

officially National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations.

British political party whose guiding principles include promotion of private property and enterprise, maintenance of a strong military and foreign policy, and preservation of traditional cultural values and institutions.

It is the heir of the old Tory Party, whose members began forming "conservative associations" after electoral rights were extended to the middle class in 1832. The modern party (whose members are often known as Tories) is essentially a coalition of two groups, and must balance its traditionalist and communitarian wing against its libertarian and individualist wing. It also experiences internal conflict over Britain's relationship with the European Union. Its membership is heavily dependent on the landowning and middle classes, but its electoral base has extended at times to incorporate about one-third of the working class. Since World War I, it and the Labour Party have dominated British politics.

* * *

▪ political party, United Kingdom

Introduction

byname  Tories 

      in the United Kingdom, a political party whose guiding principles include the promotion of private property and enterprise, the maintenance of a strong military, and the preservation of traditional cultural values and institutions. Since World War I the Conservative Party and its principal opponent, the Labour Party, have dominated British political life.

History

      The Conservative Party is the heir, and in some measure the continuation, of the old Tory Party, members of which began forming “conservative associations” after Britain's Reform Bill of 1832 extended electoral rights to the middle class. The name Conservative was first used as a description of the party by John Wilson Croker (Croker, John Wilson) writing in the Quarterly Review in 1830. The first Conservative government was formed by Sir Robert Peel (Peel, Sir Robert, 2nd Baronet), whose program, set out in the Tamworth Manifesto (1834), stressed the timely reform of abuses, the necessity of law and order, an orderly system of taxation, and the importance of both landed interests and trade and industry.

      Prospects of an extended period of Conservative rule disappeared in 1846 when the party split over the repeal of protectionist regulations known as the Corn Laws (Corn Law), and for most of the next 30 years they were out of government. The party was reorganized by Benjamin Disraeli (Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl Of Beaconsfield, Viscount Hughenden Of Hughenden), prime minister for a few months in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880. The Conservative Central Office, a professional organization established by Disraeli in 1870, and the newly formed National Union, which drew together local voluntary associations, gave the party additional unity and strength. At the same time, Disraeli's emphasis on social reform to reduce the enormous disparity in the living conditions of rich and poor, combined with a strong, activist imperial and foreign policy, helped the party to transcend class barriers. Disraeli's contribution was to transform the party from one that spoke primarily for landed interests to one that could draw supporters from the middle class and from newly enfranchised workers.

      The Conservative Party was further strengthened in 1886 when it allied with the Liberal Unionists, a faction of the Liberal Party that opposed the policy of home rule in Ireland put forward by the Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone (Gladstone, William Ewart). Thus reinforced, the Conservatives held office for all but 3 of the next 20 years, first under the leadership of Lord Salisbury (Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd marquess of, Earl Of Salisbury, Viscount Cranborne, Baron Cecil Of Essendon) and then under Arthur Balfour (Balfour, Arthur James Balfour, 1st earl of, Viscount Traprain). A split over tariff policy caused them to lose the election of 1906 in a disastrous landslide, and they did not regain power until they joined a wartime coalition with the Liberals in May 1915. In the election of 1918, most of the candidates elected to support the coalition were Conservatives.

      In 1922 Conservative backbenchers forced the party's withdrawal from the coalition and thereby precipitated the resignation of party leader Austen Chamberlain (Chamberlain, Sir Austen). The rebellion owed much to the revulsion felt by many backbenchers toward the Liberal leader and prime minister, David Lloyd George (Lloyd George, David), and to their unease over some of the more interventionist reforms introduced by Liberal ministers. A surprise election called in December 1923 by Conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin (Baldwin, Stanley, 1st Earl Baldwin Of Bewdley, Viscount Corvedale Of Corvedale) proved to be a miscalculation that briefly reunited the ailing Liberal Party and opened the way to a minority Labour Party government, though the Conservatives remained the largest single party and were able to regain power the following year. Apart from another brief Labour administration in 1929–31, the Conservatives dominated national office until 1945. Baldwin emerged as a popular figure and the architect of what he called the “new Conservatism,” an attempt to appeal to the middle class through a modest movement away from the laissez-faire economic policies that the party had advocated since 1918.

      Baldwin's successor as party leader and prime minister, Neville Chamberlain (Chamberlain, Neville), was forced from office in May 1940 by his own backbenchers because of his poor leadership in the early months of World War II. Chamberlain was replaced by another Conservative, Winston Churchill (Churchill, Sir Winston), who formed a coalition government with the Labour Party. Although Churchill led the country to victory in the war, he failed to lead his own party to success in the first postwar election in 1945. The party's stunning defeat can be attributed to the electorate's desire for social reform and economic security, as well as its inclination to blame the Conservatives for not having done enough in the 1930s to alleviate mass unemployment or to thwart the aspirations of dictators. While in opposition, the party reformed its policies and organization. It created a new youth movement (the Young Conservatives) and an education wing (the Conservative Political Centre), revived the party's research department, and undertook a drive to increase party membership. The party returned to power in 1951 and maintained office until 1964. Under the leadership of Churchill, Anthony Eden (Eden, Anthony), Harold Macmillan (Macmillan, Harold), and Alec Douglas-Home (Douglas-Home, Sir Alec), the Conservative Party came to accept the key tenets of the “postwar consensus” with Labour—that is, it recognized the state's responsibility for maintaining full employment and endorsed the use of techniques of economic-demand management, based on the theories of John Maynard Keynes (Keynes, John Maynard), to achieve that objective. Moreover, the party did not seek to reverse the welfare measures nor most of the public ownership of industry that had been introduced by Labour in 1945–51. The Conservative government did embark on an extensive house-building program and was able to reduce income taxes while increasing spending on the National Health Service. In the early 1960s, however, an economic downturn and a series of scandals—one of which involved an adulterous affair between the secretary of war and an alleged Soviet spy—undermined the party's support.

      From 1964 to 1979 the Conservatives held power alternately with the Labour Party. Under the prime ministership of Edward Heath (Heath, Sir Edward) (1970–74), the party pursued policies designed to deregulate finance and industry. Economic problems led to confrontations with the trade unions, especially the National Union of Miners, and to internal party dissension. Heath called an election in 1974 and the party lost, allowing Labour to form a minority government. After losing a second national election to Labour in 1974, Heath was succeeded as party leader by Margaret Thatcher (Thatcher, Margaret), who during her four years as leader of the opposition (1975–79) frequently stated her determination to pursue deregulation and supply-side economic reforms.

      As prime minister after the Conservatives' victory over Labour in 1979, Thatcher attempted to “roll back the state” in the economic sphere, weaken the power of the trade unions, and reduce welfare programs. She combined this ambitious economic agenda—which included the privatization of several state-owned industries and the sale of more than 1.5 million council houses (publicly owned houses) to their tenants—with moral traditionalism and skepticism toward further European integration through the European Community (EC). Critics both inside and outside the Conservative Party contended that the “cult of the market” did much to disintegrate the social order, yet Thatcher was able to lead her party to resounding victories in the general elections of 1983 and 1987, owing in part to her decisive leadership in the Falkland Islands War (1982) and to deep divisions in the opposition. Her eventual resignation as party leader (and therefore as prime minister) in 1990 reflected the combined impact of a number of factors, including public protests over a proposal to finance local government through a flat-rate “poll tax,” a series of bitter conflicts with some of her senior ministers, her strident and authoritarian style, and a growing sense among backbenchers that she might prove unable to withstand the electoral challenge of a newly united and considerably reformed Labour Party.

      Thatcher's successor, John Major (Major, John), had held senior ministerial office for only a brief period prior to his selection as prime minister. His less charismatic political style did not prevent him from winning the general election of 1992, but he had to contend with a prolonged economic recession, internal party conflict over the question of European integration, and dismally low opinion-poll ratings. The party's economic policies were questioned after Britain was forced to leave the European exchange-rate mechanism and devalue the pound in 1992. Further hampered by a series of personal scandals involving prominent officials of Major's government and facing a rejuvenated Labour Party under Tony Blair (Blair, Tony), the Conservatives suffered a crushing defeat in the general election of 1997, losing more than half their seats in the House of Commons (Commons, House of).

      Soon after the 1997 elections, Major resigned as party leader. With some potential leaders suddenly ineligible because they had lost their parliamentary seats, William Hague, former secretary of state for Wales, was elected party leader. Like Disraeli more than a century earlier, the 36-year-old Hague—the youngest Conservative leader in 200 years—set out to reform the party's organization, reestablish its appeal outside traditional Conservative strongholds, rebuild its image, and end the factional strife that had plagued the Conservatives during their last years in power. Despite these efforts, Hague's tenure was marked by continued discord, and in 2001 the party suffered a second consecutive landslide defeat to the Labour Party. In 2005, under former home secretary Michael Howard, the Conservatives won some 30 additional seats in the House of Commons but remained well shy of a parliamentary majority.

Policy and structure

      In comparison to other European conservative movements, British conservatism has proved unusually resilient, having succeeded in adapting itself to changing political and social agendas. The party is essentially a coalescence of several ideological groups, the most important of which are a centrist “One Nation” bloc that stresses economic interventionism and social harmony and an economic-liberal bloc that emphasizes a free-market economy. Neither of these two blocs are monolithic, and their heterogeneous nature usually allows them to avoid serious conflict with each other. The One-Nation Conservatives, for example, include progressives, who advocate change, and paternalists, who are more concerned with social order and authority. Nevertheless, disagreements between the two major blocs and between other groups occasionally produce dramatic splits in the party. Factional discord was sharpened during the late 1970s and '80s, as Thatcher's free-market followers, who called themselves “Dries,” wrested control of the party from their One-Nation opponents, whom they labeled “Wets.” The differences between the Wets and the Dries were particularly acute on the issue of European integration. Dries tended to be highly skeptical of moves toward European integration, whereas Wets tended to favour it.

      At the head of the party is the leader, who is the fount of all policy. Formerly (1965–98) chosen by Conservative members of Parliament, since 1998 the leader is elected by the entire party membership; the parliamentary members may still remove a leader, however, through a vote of no confidence. Below the leader there are three principal elements: the voluntary wing (comprising the local parties in the constituencies), the professional wing (the Central Office), and the parliamentary party. All three elements are represented on a Management Board, which was created in the organizational reforms following Hague's election as party leader. The board has responsibility for organizational matters within the party and has the power to expel members.

      The voluntary wing is organized in constituency associations, each of which elects its own officers and is responsible for fund-raising, campaigning, and the selection of candidates to compete in local and parliamentary elections. Specific sections within the constituency associations—such as the party's think tank, the Conservative Policy Forum (CPF)—help to integrate the views of members in the formulation of party positions on a variety of issues. Association members also attend an annual party conference. The party's Central Office, whose chief officers are appointed by the party leader, exists primarily to assist the leadership and the work of the party throughout the country. Backbench members of the parliamentary party belong to a body known as the 1922 Committee (so called because its founding members were first returned to Parliament in 1922), through which they keep the leadership informed of their opinions; they also serve on a variety of specialized committees. The committees, covering subjects such as foreign affairs and finance, meet regularly to discuss issues and to listen to invited speakers.

      The membership of the modern Conservative Party is drawn heavily from the landowning and middle classes—especially businessmen, managers, and professionals. Its electoral base, however, has extended at times well beyond these groups to incorporate approximately one-third of the working class, and working-class votes were essential to the extraordinary electoral success that the party enjoyed after World War I. Since the 1950s a regional alignment of the party's electoral support has become apparent, so that it is now concentrated in nonindustrial rural and suburban areas, especially in the south of England. Indeed, the party's decline outside England was so great that in the 1997 election it returned no members of Parliament in either Scotland or Wales.

      Although the party has long been highly circumspect about revealing the precise sources of its funds, the central party organization has tended to rely heavily on donations from corporations and wealthy individuals. The income of constituency associations derives from membership subscriptions and fund-raising events. In the 1990s, responding to a marked decline in corporate giving, the party attempted to increase the income it receives from individuals, relying on measures such as targeted mailings and the creation of patrons' clubs, whose members contributed a fixed amount of money per year.

      The party also has had to cope with declining membership. Although claiming about three million members in the early 1950s, it was believed to have 750,000 members in 1992 and only about 350,000 by the beginning of the 21st century.

Lord Norton of Louth Paul David Webb

Additional Reading

Useful historical overviews can be found in Robert Blake, The Conservative Party from Peel to Major, rev. ed. (1997); and John Ramsden, An Appetite for Power (1998). A good introductory text covering the history, philosophy, organization, and policies of the party is Philip Norton (ed.), The Conservative Party (1996). Conservative Party history since World War II is discussed in Stuart Ball (ed.), The Conservative Party Since 1945 (1998). An impressively detailed collection of essays on most aspects of the party's history is provided by Anthony Seldon and Stuart Ball (eds.), Conservative Century: The Conservative Party Since 1900 (1994), which includes a valuable and lengthy bibliographic essay.Lord Norton of Louth

* * *