By Nikolaos Rentas

Introduction

In the 2019 parliamentary elections, the Conservative Party won the majority of the seats at the House of the Commons. Five years later and ahead of the autumn 2024 elections, according to opinion polls, the popularity of the Conservative Party seems to be declining (POLITICO, 2024) and it trails Labour by double digits. In this article, the contradiction between the 2019 election outcome and the current popularity level of the Conservatives is attributed to the volatility of British politics. Moreover, it is suggested that there seems to be a correlation between the volatile electoral behavior of British voters and the emergence of new political cleavages over the last few decades. However, these new cleavages are not to be perceived as factors that eliminate the previous, traditional, cleavages of the British society, leading to a permanent realignment of British politics, as it has often been suggested in the literature (Cutts et al., 2020; Fieldhouse et al., 2023; Surridge, 2021). On the contrary, I claim that the new cleavages coexist with the traditional ones, establishing a state of permanent volatility in the British political landscape and reshaping the party system and the parties themselves, among them the Conservative Party too.

            Taking the above into consideration, this article analyzes the declining popularity of the Conservatives. It should be clarified, though, that this is not an attempt to predict electoral results but rather to look at the recent change of the Conservative Party on the basis of the new cleavages and the reshaped British party system, and to correlate this change with the Conservatives’ declining popularity. Although this decline may provide an insight on voters’ intentions, it should not be perceived as a certain prediction of electoral results.

 

Great Britain’s Cleavages and Party System

According to the cleavage theory (Lipset & Rokkan, 1967), the most important of the differences between social groups are often the basis on which the political competition takes place and the political parties are organized. Class has traditionally been considered to be the main cleavage of British politics and the foundation of the British two-party system (Alford, 1967). During the 20^th century, the particularly high class consciousness in the UK and the reinforced geographical segregation of the labor and the middle classes turned class as the dominant cleavage of British politics, around which the Labor and the Conservative parties used to rally their voters.

Class, though, was not the only social divide of the UK. Ethnicity has also been a major cleavage of the British society, leading to the historical nations (Scots, Irish and Welsh) of the United Kingdom (except for the English) demanding the devolution of power or even independence, though without initially forming parties for that purpose.  Until the devolution, nations and their demands were represented by the two major parties, mostly because the first past the post electoral system favors a two-party system (Scully & Jones, 2011). However, the devolution under Blair’s Labour Government in the end of the 1990s set the conditions for the consolidation of nationalist parties in the UK. The devolution process established an environment in which the nations were able to participate in devolved government through regional parties, independently from the two major ones, bypassing the limitations imposed by the first past the post electoral system. Nevertheless, these parties and their corresponding national groups represent a relatively small percentage of the British population and did not disturb the class alignment of the rest of the (mostly English) voters.

Still, the volatility of British elections and the demographic change of the electoral base of the major political parties cannot be explained solely by the preexisting cleavages. The class dealignment of British voters and the subsequent electoral volatility can be attributed to the emergence of globalization as a political cleavage (Kriesi et al., 2006). Globalization as a cleavage can be conceived as the divide between those that benefit from a global economy and their system of beliefs is more in terms with a globalized society, “the winners”, and those who are financially jeopardized by the economic aspect of globalization and in fundamental cultural contradiction with the societal aspect, “the losers”. In terms of demographics, this divide is mainly an educational one. The globalized economy is increasing the economic value of university degrees and the liberal values of the highly educated are more tolerant to different cultures and thus more prone to adapt to a globalized society. On the other hand, those with a lower education are financially stressed by the migrant influx reducing the value of unskilled labour, while their values are challenged by what they consider as competing cultures (Ford & Jennings, 2020). Moreover, there is a geographical dimension of the globalization cleavage. In the globalized postindustrial environment, economic growth mainly occurs in urban areas resulting in the concentration of human and economic resources in the large metropolis and their respective reduction in rural areas (Ford & Jennings, 2020).

Thus, globalization contributed to the formation of a mainly cultural cleavage between the more liberal “winners of globalization”, more tolerant in other’s racial, cultural, sexual etc., differences, and the more traditionalist “losers of globalization”, supportive of controls of any kind over matters of diversity. The effect of this cleavage on the electoral behavior in the UK has been decisive in the 2017 and 2019 elections, as well as in the 2016 Brexit referendum, during which the differentiation in the level of education and residence have been associated with vote choice (Fieldhouse et al., 2023; Norris & Inglehart, 2018). However, these observations do not indicate the replacement of the class-economic cleavage with the cultural one. The two cleavages coexist, establishing the two axes of the present bidimensional British politics. British voters still align with their class, in regard to economic matters, while expressing their cultural values when presented with the respective issues (Surridge, 2021).

In this bidimensional environment, new political parties emerge and the traditional ones are compelled to place themselves in respect of both the economic and cultural axes. Nationalist parties constitute an exemption, since they remain primarily focused on ethnicity and the center-periphery cleavages. Regardless of these exemptions, the rest of the British parties have positioned themselves on the cultural and the economic cleavages. At this point, it should be clarified that the British party system, despite the presence of various parties in the parliament, still has two major parties, which are, most of the times, capable of forming ruling majorities in parliament on their own, while the remaining parties mostly play minor opposition roles and only rarely partake into government. Thus, it can be argued that it is a two-and-a-half party system (Siaroff, 2003). This may not be obvious by a simple enumeration of the parliamentary parties. It is, however, implied by the effective number of parties, 2.56, computed according to the formula of  Laakso & Taagepera (1979).

Liberal Democrats are the oldest of the “third” parties of the British party system. On the economic dimension they are traditionally positioned between the Conservatives and the Labour Party, while culturally they are leaning heavily towards liberalism (For a Fair Deal, 2024; Zur, 2021). Contrary to Liberal Democrats, the Reform Party, formerly named Brexit Party, a successor-party to Nigel Farage’s UKIP, is reaching towards the edge of authoritarianism in the respective axis. On the economy, they are suggesting mild government intervention, but their program is mostly focused on the cultural dimension and is vague and incoherent regarding economic issues (Reform Policies, 2024). Despite their limited electoral appeal, these two parties can have extensive impact on the electoral performance of both Labour and Conservatives, by limiting the outreach of these two major parties.

The two major parties traditionally occupy opposing sides in the economy. The Conservatives, despite having at times introduced interventional policies, remain primarily liberal in economic policies (conservatives.com, 2024). On the contrary, Labour, in spite of occasionally promoting a limited degree of privatization (mostly during Tony Blair’s premiership), is generally in favour of government intervention to the economy in order to ensure a social security net (Buckler & Dolowitz, 2000). Similarly, they assumed contrasting positions, regarding the newly risen cultural cleavage. Conservatives are leaning towards authoritarianism while Labour adopted a liberal stance, about social and cultural issues.

The Change of the Conservative Party

An explanation of the declining popularity of the Conservative Party since 2021, requires an insightful examination of the process of reconfiguration of the party’s role in British politics and the intra-party competition. The Brexit referendum forced the party to refocus its message from the economic cleavage to the cultural one and initiated its transition towards hardline authoritarianism. Under the leadership of Boris Johnson, the Conservative Party completed this process, resulting to the control of the party by the most hardcore faction of the party (Hayton, 2022). “One Nation Conservatives”, the oldest and most moderate group within the Conservatives are sidelined since 2019. Nonetheless, they retain a significant parliamentary representation of about 100 MPs and seem to resurface during the Sunak premiership (Scott, 2024).

As mentioned, the necessity for the Conservative Party to change its focus to culture instead of economy, led to the emergence of new groups and extensive party change. These groups, that can be collectively referred to as “Culture Warriors” (Quinn & Walker, 2023), constitute the radically authoritarian wing of the Conservatives. They were out of the spotlight until the Brexit referendum, but have, since, greatly increased their influence, which peaked under the leadership of Boris Johnson. This collective of different groups (European Research Group, Common Sense Group, Northern Research Group, New Conservatives) has led the Conservative Party to extreme authoritarianism. This group’s tendency to focus exclusively on cultural matters is the reason of both the 2019 electoral win and the party’s current popularity decline, as it will be analyzed further bellow.

Party change under Boris Johnson, except from sidelining One-Nation Conservatives and consolidating the influence of Culture Warriors, also affected Thatcherite Neoliberals which, similarly to One Nation, focused on the economy axis. However, contrary to moderate One-Nation Conservatives, supporters of Neoliberalism favor minimizing the role of the state to its very basic functions and the deregulation of market (Gamble, 1989). Under Boris Johnson, the more extreme members of this group felt encouraged in their positions. Whereas, this encouragement was probably based on their supposedly more authoritarian attitudes, it resulted in setting the conditions for the premiership of Lizz Truss, a supporter of extremely neo-liberal economic policies. The application of these policies caused heavy damage on the economy and led to Truss’s resignation and to a sense of fallibility regarding Conservatives’ economic policies (Partington, 2022).

Overall, the Conservatives’ effort to align to the cultural cleavage resulted in an extensive party change. Culture Warriors, the group most associated with Conservatives’ redirection towards the cultural cleavage and authoritarian policies, achieved control of the party, either by sideling other groups (such as One Nation) or by encouraging the extremists within them, as is the case of neoliberals. However, this party change was achieved at the cost of the reduction the party’s capacity to address issues regarding the economic cleavage and led to the alienation of their moderate supporters.

 

Salient issues and the decline of the Conservative Party

After Boris Johnson and Lizz Truss’s premierships, the Conservative Party appears unappealing to British and Sunak’s government has been unable, so far, to change this trend. This can be attributed to the increased salience of issues linked to the economic cleavage, such as the state of the economy, the state of the National Health System (NHS) and housing (yougov.co.uk, 2024b). The rise in importance of these issues is damaging the Conservative Party for several reasons. First of all, the British electorate is, in general, oriented towards the left side of the economic axis (Surridge, 2021). Thus, Conservatives’ rightwing policies disagree with the views of the majority. Moreover, the emphasis placed by the Conservatives on the cultural cleavage and the issues linked to it, led to the production of inadequate economic policies, specifically PM Truss’s policies. Consequently, the general disapproval of the rightwing economic policies is amplified by what public opinion considers to be poor government performance. This is evident in polls considering government performance and party competence in issues, such as the economy and NHS (Mann, 2024; yougov.co.uk, 2024c).

Despite the focus on the cultural cleavage imposed mostly by Culture Warriors, the Conservative Party is, also, considered to be inadequate in cultural issues. Although the clear pro-Brexit position of the Conservatives led to their electoral victory in 2019, the conclusion of Brexit is considered as a failure by 62% of the British (Smith, 2023). Similarly, despite the government having greatly reduced immigration, British people, by 82%, consider the government’s control over immigration as a failure (yougov.co.uk, 2024a). Specifically considering immigration, the rise of its salience can be attributed to the fixation of the Culture Warriors on this issue. The prominence given to immigration through their speeches (Braverman, 2023; Truss, 2024) and through policies, such as the Rwanda Bill, led to the increased salience of the issue and the public’s impression that immigration is not handled properly by the government (yougov.co.uk, 2024a), despite the decrease in migrants influx (Sumption et al., 2024; Walsh & Cuibus, 2023).

Considering the above, it can be argued that the party change initiated by Boris Johnson and the rise of the monolithic Culture Warriors as a decisive force within the party, reduced its reliability, especially with regard to economic issues. The moderate realist profile of the party, mainly expressed by One Nation Conservatives, has been replaced by militant authoritarianism. One Nation Conservatives and, even, moderate neoliberals have been, practically, excluded from government positions and policymaking until Sunak’s premiership. Moreover, the exclusive occupation with, mainly irregular, immigration, and its portraying as one of Britain’s greatest threats has led to the impression that Conservatives, whatever is the government configuration or ruling party group, have been unable to control immigration for the past decade. Therefore, Labour is generally considered as the party most capable to handle the economy, whereas Reform is noticeably increasing its popularity, because of the government inability to persuade that it handles immigration adequately.

 

Conclusion

The Conservatives’ party change towards cultural authoritarianism is considered one of the main reasons of the 2019 electoral outcome. Conservatives adjusted to the new cleavage and managed to emerge unharmed from the electoral volatility of 2019. However, as discussed, the volatility persists and the takeover by the Culture Warriors has deprived the party of its ability to adjust. While British people focus on economic matters, Conservatives remain culture-oriented and are, subsequently, undergoing a major loss of popularity. Labour claims the votes of citizens discontent with the government’s unorthodox policies, while the increased salience of immigration has led to the reemergence of Reform.

As mentioned earlier, these insights, mainly deriving from public opinion polls’ data, are not predictive of the results of the forthcoming election. However, they disclose the general volatility of the political landscape in Great Britain. The emergence of culture as a cleavage did not lead to a permanent realignment of British politics as it has been suggested by past research. On the contrary, it resulted to permanent volatility, reconfiguration of the party system and an extensive party change of the Conservatives. The points made in this article, regarding the British political system and the Conservatives’ position within it, could be the foundation for post-election research of the Conservative Party and its role in the party system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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