Sir John Major is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. He previously held Cabinet positions under prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the last as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1989 to 1990. Major was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Huntingdonshire, from 1979 to 2001. Since stepping down as an MP in 2001, Major has focused on writing and his business, sporting and charity work, and has occasionally commented on political developments in the role of an elder statesman.
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, having won the 2019 general election, and has been the primary governing party in the United Kingdom since 2010. The party is on the centre-right of the political spectrum, and encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatives. The party currently has 354 members of Parliament, 260 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 around 5,647 local councillors. It holds the annual Conservative Party Conference.
Peter Bruce Lilley, Baron Lilley, PC is a British politician and life peer who served as a cabinet minister in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) Hitchin and Harpenden from 1997 to 2017 and, prior to boundary changes, St Albans from 1983.
Sir William Nigel Paul Cash is a British politician who has served as a member of Parliament (MP) since 1984. A member of the Conservative Party, he was first elected for Stafford and then for Stone in Staffordshire in 1997. Cash is a prominent Eurosceptic. Following his tenth election victory in the 2019 general election, aged 79, Cash became the oldest sitting member of the House of Commons.
The Maastricht Rebels were British Members of Parliament (MPs) belonging to the then governing Conservative Party who refused to support the government of Prime Minister John Major in a series of votes in the House of Commons on the issue of the implementation of the Maastricht Treaty in British law.
Sir Edward MacMillan Taylor, known as Teddy Taylor, was a British Conservative Party politician who was a Member of Parliament (MP) for forty years, from 1964 to 1979 for Glasgow Cathcart and from 1980 to 2005 for Southend East.
The Bruges Group is a think tank based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1989, it advocates for a restructuring of Britain's relationship with the European Union and other European countries. Its members and staff campaign against the notion of an "ever-closer union" in Europe and, above all, against British involvement in a single European state. The group is often associated with the Conservative Party, including MPs such as Iain Duncan Smith, Daniel Hannan, John Redwood, and Norman Lamont. However, it is formally an independent all-party think tank, and some Labour MPs and peers have cited the publications or attended the meetings of the Bruges Group through the years, such as Frank Field, Gisela Stuart, Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Lord Shore of Stepney.
Sir Bernard Christison Jenkin is a British Conservative Party politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Harwich and North Essex since 2010. He also serves as chair of the Liaison Committee. He was first elected to represent Colchester North in 1992, and went on to represent North Essex before the Harwich and North Essex constituency was created.
Sir Edward Julian Egerton Leigh is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1983.
Sir John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Maldon since 1992. A member of the Conservative Party, Whittingdale has been the Minister of State for Data and Digital Infrastructure since May 2023, serving in the position while Julia Lopez is on maternity leave. He previously served in the position as the Minister of State for Media and Data at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) from 2020 to 2021. He also served at the DCMS as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in the Cabinet from 2015 to 2016.
Anthony David Steen CBE is a former British Conservative Party politician and barrister. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 to 2010, and the Chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. Having represented Totnes in Devon since 1997, he was previously MP for South Hams from 1983, and had also been the MP for Liverpool Wavertree between February 1974 and 1983. From 1992 to 1994, he was Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Peter Brooke MP as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Act set the European Community an objective of establishing a single market by 31 December 1992, and a forerunner of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) it helped codify European Political Co-operation. The amending treaty was signed at Luxembourg City on 17 February 1986 and at The Hague on 28 February 1986. It came into effect on 1 July 1987, under the Delors Commission.
Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom is a continuum of belief ranging from the opposition to certain political policies of the European Union to the complete opposition to the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union. It has been a significant element in the politics of the United Kingdom (UK). A 2009 Eurobarometer survey of EU citizens showed support for membership of the EU was lowest in the United Kingdom, alongside Latvia and Hungary.
The Conservative European Forum (CEF) was founded in 1969 to promote the UK's entry into the European Economic Community. The organisation is committed to a positive and constructive approach to the UK's relationships with the democracies of Europe, including the European Union.
Joseph Edmund Johnson, Baron Johnson of Marylebone, is a British politician who was Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation from July to September 2019, and from 2015 to 2018. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Orpington from 2010 to 2019. He currently sits in the House of Lords. His older brother, Boris Johnson, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 2019 and 2022.
On 23 June 2016, a referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country should remain a member of, or leave, the European Union (EU). It was organised and facilitated through the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The referendum resulted in 51.9% of the votes cast being in favour of leaving the EU. Although the referendum was legally non-binding, the government of the time promised to implement the result.
Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020. The UK is the only sovereign country to have left the EU. The UK had been a member state of the EU or its predecessor the European Communities (EC), sometimes both at the same time, since 1 January 1973. Following Brexit, EU law and the Court of Justice of the European Union no longer have primacy over British laws. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains relevant EU law as domestic law, which the UK can amend or repeal.
Vote Leave was a campaigning organisation that supported a "Leave" vote in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. On 13 April 2016 it was designated by the Electoral Commission as the official campaign in favour of leaving the European Union in the Referendum.
The United Kingdom was a member state of the European Union (EU) and of its predecessor the European Communities (EC) – principally the European Economic Community (EEC) from 1 January 1973 until 31 January 2020. Since the foundation of the EEC, the UK had been an important neighbour and then leading member state, until Brexit ended 47 years of membership. During the UK's time as a member state two referendums were held on the issue of its membership, with the first being held on 5 June 1975, resulting in a vote to stay in the EC, and the second, held on 23 June 2016, which resulted in the vote to leave the EU.
The European Research Group (ERG) is a research support group and caucus of Eurosceptic Conservative Members of Parliament of the United Kingdom. The journalist Sebastian Payne described it in the Financial Times as "the most influential [research group] in recent political history".
