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. It has been the primary governing party in Britain 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 356 Members of Parliament, 264 members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Welsh Parliament, 2 directly elected mayors, 30 police and crime commissioners, and around 6,683 local councillors. It holds the annual Conservative Party Conference.
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001, and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and served as Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State under Major.
One-nation conservatism, also known as one-nationism or Tory democracy, is a paternalistic form of British political conservatism. It advocates the preservation of established institutions and traditional principles within a political democracy, in combination with social and economic programmes designed to benefit the ordinary person. According to this political philosophy, society should be allowed to develop in an organic way, rather than being engineered. It argues that members of society have obligations towards each other and particularly emphasises paternalism, meaning that those who are privileged and wealthy should pass on their benefits. It argues that this elite should work to reconcile the interests of all classes, including labour and management, rather than identifying the good of society solely with the interests of the business class.
Sir George Iain Duncan Smith, often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Chingford and Woodford Green, formerly Chingford, since 1992.
A Red Tory is an adherent of a centre to centre-right or paternalistic-conservative political philosophy derived from the Tory tradition, most predominantly in Canada but also in the United Kingdom and Australia. This philosophy tends to favour communitarian social policies, while maintaining a degree of fiscal discipline and a respect of social and political order. It is contrasted with "Blue Tory" or "High Tory". Some Red Tories view themselves as small-c conservatives.
Sir Graham Stuart Brady is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Altrincham and Sale West since 1997. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been Chairman of the 1922 Committee since 2010, except for a brief period in 2019. During his tenure as 1922 Committee chairman, he has overseen the election of three Party leaders and Prime Ministers as well as votes of no confidence into prime ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson.
The Tory Reform Group (TRG) is a pressure group associated with the British Conservative Party that works to promote "modern, progressive Conservatism... economic efficiency and social justice" and "a Conservatism that supports equality, diversity and civil liberties", values sometimes associated with Harold Macmillan's "Middle Way" or what the groups consider a moderate one-nation conservatism. Senior figures include Michael Heseltine, Douglas Hurd, Ken Clarke, and Chris Patten.
Mark Christopher Field is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cities of London and Westminster from 2001 to 2019. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 2017 to 2019. A prominent supporter of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union during the Brexit referendum and of Jeremy Hunt in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election, he left his post as a Foreign Office Minister when Boris Johnson's premiership began. He stood down from the British House of Commons at the 2019 United Kingdom general election.
The 2005 Conservative Party leadership election was called by party leader Michael Howard on 6 May 2005, when he announced that he would be stepping down as Leader of the Conservative Party in the near future following the party's third successive general election defeat. However, he stated that he would not depart until a review of the rules for the leadership election had been conducted, given the high level of dissatisfaction with the current system. Ultimately, no changes were made and the election proceeded with the existing rules, which were introduced in 1998.
No Turning Back is a group within the British Conservative Party advocating Thatcherite policies. It was founded in 1985 to defend Margaret Thatcher's free-market reforms. The group was named in honour of Thatcher's 1980 Conservative conference quote "U-turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning." No Turning Back published less material in the nineties and became involved in Conservative party in-fighting, resulting in both Michael Portillo and Francis Maude leaving the group, but became more prominent during Iain Duncan Smith's time as Conservative leader because he had been a member until he was elected.
Timothy Montgomerie is a British political activist, blogger, and columnist. He is best known as the co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice and as creator of the ConservativeHome website, which he edited from 2005 until 2013, when he left to join The Times. He was formerly the newspaper's comment editor, but resigned in March 2014. On 17 February 2016, Montgomerie resigned his membership of the Conservative Party, citing the leadership's stance on Europe, which was then supportive of EU membership. In 2019, he was briefly a special adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, advising on social justice issues.
Christopher James Skidmore, is a British politician, and author of popular history. He served as Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation from December 2018 to July 2019, and from September 2019 to February 2020, during which he signed UK's Net Zero pledge into law. He also served as Interim Minister for Energy and Clean Growth. Currently, he serves as the Chair of the Net Zero review since September 2022.
George William Freeman is a British Conservative Party politician serving as Minister of State for Science, Research and Innovation. He has served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Norfolk since 2010. He served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Research and Innovation from September 2021 until his resignation in July 2022.
Bright Blue is an independent think tank and pressure group advocating for liberal conservative ideas and policies, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2014 by British entrepreneur Ryan Shorthouse, Bright Blue aims to "defend and champion liberal, open, democratic and meritocratic values, institutions and policies." Bright Blue is a membership-based think tank, with membership open to anyone who identifies as a liberal conservative.
Labour Leave is a Eurosceptic campaign group in the United Kingdom. The group is unofficially affiliated with the Labour Party, and campaigned for the United Kingdom to vote to withdraw from the European Union, in the June 2016 EU Referendum. The group was led by eurosceptic Labour MPs: Graham Stringer, Kelvin Hopkins, and Roger Godsiff.
The One Nation Conservatives is a UK parliamentary caucus of Conservative Party Members of Parliament who identify as one-nation conservatives.
Blue Collar Conservatives are a pressure group and caucus of Conservative Party Members of Parliament who identify as working class conservatives. It was founded in 2012 by former cabinet minister Esther McVey and a former conservative parliamentary candidate for Workington, Clark Vasey. It was relaunched at the beginning of the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election by Esther McVey, Ben Bradley, the MP for Mansfield since 2017, and Scott Mann, the MP for North Cornwall since 2015. The relaunch was reported to have rivalled the recent establishment of the One Nation Conservatives.
Onward is a UK-based think tank producing research on economic and social issues. Founded in 2018 by Will Tanner, Martyn Rose, and Neil O'Brien, it is chaired by Danny Finkelstein. The founders state that Onward would operate in the mainstream of conservative politics, and is a reaction to the "lack of energy on the centre right". It is explicitly aligned to the Conservative Party and is not a charity.
