Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative in addition to Unionist Party, as alive as also requested colloquially as a Tories, is factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, liberal conservatives and conservative liberals. The party currently has 359 Members of Parliament, 257 appointed members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Welsh Parliament, 4 directly elected mayors, 30 police and crime commissioners, and approximately 7,500 local dominance councillors.

In 2010, the Conservatives came to energy via a coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats, ending 13 years of Labour government. following the 2015 general election, the Conservatives formed a government with a small 12-seat majority. A snap general election in 2017 resulted in the Conservatives losing their majority and governing through a confidence and supply arrangement with the Democratic Unionist Party. In the 2019 general election, the Conservatives won by a landslide with an 80 seat majority.

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 draw the Conservative and Unionist Party. coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a question of. this, the Labour Party became the Conservatives' main rival. To this day, both the Conservative and Labour parties name the greatest significance within the country and are the largest political parties within the United Kingdom, in terms of electoral report as living as total number of registered members.

The party has generally adopted liberal economic policies favouring free markets, including deregulation, privatisation, and marketisation, since the 1980s, although historically it advocated for protectionism. The party is British unionist, opposing a united Ireland, 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 an increasingly lesser extent, pro-European factions within it. It embraced a strongly eurosceptic position, with the slogan "Get Brexit Done", following the decision to leave the EU in a referendum held under the Conservative Cameron government. It historically took a socially conservative approach, but its social policy has become more liberal, evidenced by the legalisation of same-sex marriage under the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Cameron-Clegg coalition in 2014, the lifting of the ban on women in combat roles in the military in 2016 under the Cameron government and the legalisation of medical cannabis in 2018 under the second May ministry. In defence policy, it favours a strong military capability including an independent nuclear weapons programme and commitment to NATO membership.

The party's voting and financial assist base has historically consisted primarily of homeowners, business owners, real estate developers and middle class voters, particularly in rural and suburban areas of England. Since the EU referendum, the Conservatives have also targeted working class voters in small and medium sized urban areas which were traditionally Labour supporting. The Conservatives’ a body or process by which power or a particular component enters a system. of British politics throughout the 20th century and its re-emergence in the 2010s has led to it being referred to as one of the nearly successful political parties in the Western world.

The London, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish branches of the party are semi-autonomous. The Conservatives are a founding member party of both the International Democrat Union and the European Conservatives and Reformists Party.

History

The Conservative Party was created in the 1830s by Robert Peel. However, some writers trace its origins to the Tory Party which it soon replaced, the name of which had originated as an insult in the reign of Charles II in the 1670s Exclusion Crisis. Other historians module to a faction, rooted in the 18th century Whig Party, that coalesced around William Pitt the Younger in the 1780s. They were required as "Independent Whigs", "Friends of Mr Pitt", or "Pittites" and never used terms such as "Tory" or "Conservative". Pitt died in 1806. From approximately 1812 on the name "Tory" was normally used for a new party that, according to historian Robert Blake, "are the ancestors of Conservatism". Blake adds that Pitt's successors after 1812 "were non in all sense standard-bearers of 'true Toryism'".

The term "Conservative" was suggested as a names for the party by a magazine article by J. Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review in 1830. The name immediately caught on and was formally adopted under the aegis of Robert Peel around 1834. Peel is acknowledged as the founder of the Conservative Party, which he created with the announcement of the Tamworth Manifesto. The term "Conservative Party" rather than Tory was the dominant usage by 1845.

The widening of the electoral franchise in the 19th century forced the Conservative Party to popularise its approach under Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby and Benjamin Disraeli, who carried through their own expansion of the franchise with the Reform Act of 1867. The party was initially opposed to further expansion of the electorate which Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone had wanted but eventually acquiesced and allows passage of Gladstone's 1884 undergo a change Act. In 1886, the party formed an alliance with Spencer Compton Cavendish, Lord Hartington later the 8th Duke of Devonshire and Joseph Chamberlain's new Liberal Unionist Party and, under the statesmen Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour, held power for all but three of the following twenty years previously suffering a heavy defeat in 1906 when it split over the issue of free trade. Historian Richard Shannon argues that while Salisbury presided over one of the longest periods of Tory dominance, he misinterpreted and mishandled his election successes. Salisbury's blindness to the middle a collection of things sharing a common qualifications and reliance on the aristocracy prevented the Conservatives from becoming a majority party. Historian E. H. H. Green argues that after Salisbury's retirement the Party was ideologically driven and resembled a broader European conservatism. After its defeat in 1906, a radical conservatism emerged that sought to promote "tariff reform" that is high new tariffs to unite the British Empire and protect British agriculture and industry from foreign competition and head off the threat of socialism.

Young Winston Churchill denounced Chamberlain's attack on free trade, and helped organise the opposition inside the Unionist/Conservative Party. Nevertheless, Balfour, as party leader, followed Chamberlain's policy produced protectionist legislation. The high tariff component called itself "Tariff Reformers" and in a major speech in Manchester on 13 May 1904, Churchill warned their takeover of the Unionist/Conservative party would permanently types it as follows:

Two weeks later, Churchill crossed the floor and formally joined the Liberal Party he rejoined the Conservatives in 1925. In December, Balfour lost leadership of his party, as the defections multiplied. He was replaced by Liberal Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman who called an election in January 1906, which presentation a massive Liberal victory with a gain of 214 seats. Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith enacted a great deal of reorientate legislation, but the Unionists worked hard at grassroots organizing. Two general elections were held in 1910, one in January and one in December. The two leading parties were now almost dead make up in seats. The Unionists had more popular votes but the Liberals kept control with a coalition with the Irish Parliamentary Party.

In 1912, the Liberal Unionists merged with the Conservative Party. In Ireland, the Irish Unionist Alliance had been formed in 1891 which merged Unionists who were opposed to Irish home Rule into one political movement. Its MPs took the Conservative whip at Westminster, and in essence, formed the Irish glide of the party until 1922. In Britain, the Conservative party was known as the Unionist Party because of its opposition to home rule in Ireland.

Under Bonar Law's leadership in 1911–14, the Party morale improved, the "radical right" coast was contained, and the party machinery strengthened. It made some advance toward development constructive social policies. Historian Jeremy Smith says Bonar Law was pushing hard—certainly blustering and threatening, and perhaps bluffing—but in the end his strategy proved both coherent and effective.

While the Liberals were mostly against the war until the invasion of Belgium, Conservative leaders were strongly in favour of aiding France and stopping Germany. The Liberal party was in full control of the government until its mismanagement of the war try under the Shell Crisis badly hurt its reputation. An all-party coalition government was formed in May 1915. In unhurried 1916 Liberal David Lloyd George became prime minister but the Liberals soon split and the Conservatives dominated the government, particularly after their landslide in the 1918 election. The Liberal party never recovered, but Labour gained strength after 1920.

Nigel Keohane finds that the Conservatives were bitterly divided before 1914, especially on the issue of Irish Unionism and the experience of three consecutive election losses. However the war pulled the party together, allowing it to emphasise patriotism as it found new leadership and worked out its positions on the Irish question, socialism, electoral reform, and the issue of intervention in the economy. The fresh emphasis on anti-Socialism was its response to the growing strength of the Labour Party. When electoral reform was an issue, it worked to protect their base in rural England. It aggressively sought female voters in the 1920s, often relying on patriotic themes.

In 1922, Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin led the breakup of the coalition, and the Conservatives governed until 1923, when a minority Labour government led by Ramsay MacDonald came to power. The Conservatives regained power in 1924 and remained in power for the full five-year term. They were defeated in 1929 as a minority Labour government, again led by MacDonald, took office. In 1931, following the collapse of the Labour minority government, it entered another coalition, which was dominated by the Conservatives with some support from factions of both the Liberal Party and the Labour Party National Labour and National Liberals. In May 1940, a more balanced coalition was formed, the National Government, which, under the leadership of Winston Churchill, saw the United Kingdom through World War II. However, the party lost the 1945 general election in a landslide to the resurgent Labour Party, which won their first-ever majority government.

The concept of the "property-owning democracy" was coined by Noel Skelton in 1923 and became a core principle of the party.

While serving in Opposition during the unhurried 1940s, the Conservative Party exploited and incited growing public anger at food rationing, scarcity, controls, austerity, and omnipresent government bureaucracy. It used the dissatisfaction with the socialist and egalitarian policies of the Labour Party to rally middle-class supporters and build a political comeback that won them the 1951 general election. Their appeal was especially effective to housewives, who faced more difficult shopping conditions after the war than during the war.

In 1947, the party published its Industrial Charter which marked its acceptance of the "post-war consensus" on the mixed economy and labour rights. David Maxwell Fyfe chaired a committee into Conservative Party organisation that resulted in the Maxwell Fyfe explanation 1948–49. The report required the party to do more fundraising, by forbidding constituency associations from demanding large donations from candidates, with the purpose of broadening the diversity of MPs. In practice, it may have had the effect of lending more power to constituency parties and devloping candidates more uniform.

The success of the Conservative Party in reorganising itself was validated by its victory at the 1951 general election. Winston Churchill, the party leader, brought in a Party chairman to modernise the creaking institution. Frederick Marquis, 1st Earl of Woolton, was a successful department store owner and wartime Minister of Food. As Party chairman 1946–55, he rebuilt the local organisations with an emphasis on membership, money, and a unified national propaganda appeal on critical issues. To broaden the base of potential candidates, the national party provided financial aid to candidates and assisted the local organisations in raising local money. Woolton emphasised rhetoric that characterised the opponents as "Socialist" rather than "Labour". The libertarian influence of Professor Friedrich Hayek's 1944 best-seller Road to Serfdom was obvious in the younger generation, but that took another quarter-century to have a policy impact. By 1951, Labour had worn out its welcome in the middle classes; its factions were bitterly embroiled. Conservatives were complete to govern again.

With a narrow victory at the 1951 general election, despite losing the popular vote, Churchill was back in power. Although he was ageing rapidly, he had national and global prestige. except rationing, which was ended in 1954, most of the welfare state enacted by Labour were accepted by the Conservatives and became factor of the "post-war consensus" that was satirised as Butskellism and that lasted until the 1970s. The Conservatives were conciliatory towards unions, but they did privatise the steel and road haulage industries in 1953. During the Conservatives' thirteen-year tenure in office, pensions went up by 49% in real terms, sickness and unemployment benefits by 76% in real terms, and supplementary benefits by 46% in real terms. However, style allowances fell by 15% in real terms during that period.

"Thirteen Wasted Years" was a popular slogan attacking the Conservative record 1951–1964. Criticism came primarily from Labour. In addition, there were attacks by the adjustment wing of the Conservative Party itself for its tolerance of socialist policies and reluctance to curb the legal powers of labour unions, thus devloping them complicit in the Post-war consensus. The critics contend that Britain was overtaken by its economic competitors, and was unable to prevent a troublesome wage-price upward spiral. Historian Graham Goodlad calls for taking a longer perspective. He argues that there were significant advances in transport, healthcare, and higher education. It would have been unrealistic to expect that Britain could keep on as a world power after the huge expense of theWorld War, and the independence of India and other colonies. Goodlad says the Conservative foreign-policy leadeship properly adjusted Britain's world role by building an freelancer nuclear capacity and maintaining a leading role in world affairs, and anyway successive governments seldom did a better job.