Post-Brexit, new fissures may emerge in the Conservative party, writes Richard Hayton
Ten days after David Cameron’s resignation as prime minister, the then Conservative party deputy chair, Robert Halfon, declared that his party faced an ‘existential crisis’. Halfon’s comments were made in the midst of the tumult of the leadership election to find a replacement for Cameron. Little did he know that just a week later Theresa May would be confirmed as the winner of that race, following her comprehensive victory in the ballot of members of parliament and the unexpected withdrawal of her opponent in the final run-off, Andrea Leadsom. The Conservatives had seemingly resolved their post-referendum turmoil before Labour had finished wrangling over the rules to govern its own prospective contest.
While some party members were furious to be deprived of their say over the choice of leader, the sense of relief within much of the parliamentary party that the contest was over quickly was palpable. May had secured 60 per cent of the votes in the second round of voting against Leadsom and Michael Gove, and former backers of both were quick to throw their weight behind the new prime minister. So what, if anything, can we read into this outbreak of apparent Tory unity?
Prior to the referendum, many Conservative MPs and political commentators argued that the next leader of the party would most likely come from the Brexit wing of the party. This assumption was widely credited with influencing Boris Johnson’s decision to join the ‘Leave’ campaign, and was based on the reasoning that, should the country vote to remain in the European Union, only a Brexiteer would be able to console the Eurosceptic wing, while a vote for ‘Leave’ should be delivered by someone who had campaigned for it. The latter argument was pushed by both Leadsom and Gove in the leadership election, but May was able to head it off effectively through her rapid and uncompromising declaration that ‘Brexit means Brexit’. The ease with which she was able to make this declaration in part reflected her strategic absence from most of the referendum campaign, and some careful positioning before and during it. But it also brought into sharp relief a deeper shift that has taken place in the Conservative party over several decades, one in which the key division was no longer between pro- and anti-Europeans, but between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Eurosceptics. The truth is that what would previously have been understood as a pro-European position had been banished to the margins of the Conservative party even before the promise of the referendum was made in 2013. In the immediate referendum aftermath the appearance of an incandescent Michael Heseltine, fuming about how the result might be revisited through a vote in parliament, a general election or a second referendum, only served to reinforce how isolated his views on European integration had become within the contemporary Conservative party.
Somewhat ironically, given its calamitous impact on his own premiership, Cameron may therefore have inadvertently finally resolved the most intractable ideological split in the Conservative party for decades, over the issue of European integration. The vast bulk of Conservative MPs have been able to move to rapidly accept the referendum result as they had either favoured Brexit anyway (in the case of about 140), or had sided with ‘Remain’ even though they had reservations about the whole European project. Debate among the Conservatives is not about whether the United Kingdom should still contemplate staying in the EU, but about what form Brexit should take. It looks likely that the Brexit negotiations will revolve around a trade-off between access to the single market, particularly so-called ‘passporting’ rights for financial services companies, and the free movement of people. There is a spectrum of opinion within the parliamentary Conservative party over which of those elements to prioritise but there is no fundamental division. Retaining full access to the single market already looks very unlikely, as May has made it clear that ‘there is clearly no mandate for a deal that involves accepting the free movement of people as it has worked hitherto’. Conservative members and voters backed Brexit, so a significant about-turn from this position would most likely be career-suicide for the new party leader. As such, Labour is now the British political party most divided over the country’s future relationship with the EU.
The party May has inherited remains significantly divided on other issues, however. One major challenge for the new prime minister will be managing relations with Scotland. Finding a way to leave one union while preserving another could well end up being her greatest test. May has stressed the importance of the union between the nations of the UK to her vision of conservatism, describing it as a ‘precious, precious bond’ in her first public statement as prime minister. In a symbolic gesture the next day she travelled to Scotland for her first official engagement, to discuss Brexit with the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. However, while the rhetoric of unionism remains potent in Conservative circles, there is a growing strand of opinion within the party that is far less willing to concede what it sees as English interests in order to preserve the union. It was this party pressure and fears over the United Kingdom Independence party exploiting English nationalism electorally that led Cameron to announce, within hours of the result of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence being confirmed, that the Conservatives would hastily bring forward plans for English votes for English laws at Westminster. Given the strength of the vote against Brexit in Scotland a second referendum on Scottish independence now looks likely, but the willingness of many Conservative parliamentarians to compromise with the Scots is highly doubtful. As John Redwood recently argued, ‘Brexit is a Union matter and has to proceed has such’. The chances of Scotland being able to secure separate terms while remaining in the UK therefore look slim. Equally, the break-up of the union would be traumatic for many Conservatives, for whom it retains a powerful emotional pull.
The other big cleavage in the contemporary Conservative party is over attitudes towards social liberalism. Cameron’s project to modernise conservatism had, initially at least, sought to sideline traditional Conservative positions on a range of social issues that were increasingly out of touch with contemporary society, especially among centrist swing voters who he needed to win over. However, after five years in office the modernisation project had all but withered away, and – although Cameron succeeded in passing the same-sex marriage legislation in 2013 – there is little evidence that his premiership has transformed his party into a socially liberal one. In the vote on gay marriage the parliamentary Conservative party was split down the middle, with 127 Conservative MPs voting for the measure at second reading and 136 against. May consequently inherits a party that is divided over a range of social matters where liberal and more traditionally conservative attitudes clash. These range from questions of gender and sexual equality, to penal policy, and to the debate over grammar schools that has once again reared its head. Forging a consistent and distinctive ideological outlook on social issues, which can carry her party with her and simultaneously appeal to the country, is the challenge which will define whether May’s tenure in Downing Street can transcend the issue of managing Brexit.
The broad outline of what May hopes conservatism after Cameron will look like have already begun to emerge. She wants to preserve the territorial integrity of the UK while implementing Brexit, and to pursue a ‘proudly provincial conservatism’, which has been fleshed out by her key adviser, Nick Timothy. In Timothy’s view, there needs to be less of the ‘unthinking liberalism’ of Cameron and George Osborne (particularly on issues such as immigration and industrial strategy), and a more explicit focus on the needs and views of blue-collar workers. Yet the spectrum of opinion within the Conservative party remains broad. While Conservatives might be rather more united than their opponents that ‘Brexit means Brexit’, unravelling what Brexit really means in practice will no doubt throw up a series of intraparty conflicts to tax May. With a majority of only 12 seats and Labour in disarray it will take a herculean exercise in self-restraint from the new prime minister not to instigate an early general election to give herself a larger cushion against backbench rebellions.
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Richard Hayton is associate professor of politics at the University of Leeds
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