The Liberal Party of Canada is a federal political party in Canada. The party espouses the principles of liberalism, and generally sits at the centre to centre-left of the Canadian political spectrum, with their main rival, the Conservative Party, positioned to their right and the New Democratic Party positioned to their left. The party is described as "big tent", practising "brokerage politics", attracting support from a broad spectrum of voters. The Liberal Party is the longest-serving and oldest active federal political party in the country, and has dominated federal politics of Canada for much of its history, holding power for almost 70 years of the 20th century. As a result, it has sometimes been referred to as Canada's "natural governing party".
Theresa Mary, Lady May is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served as Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidenhead from 1997 to 2024. May is the second female UK prime minister, after Margaret Thatcher, and the first woman to hold two of the Great Offices of State. Ideologically, May is a one-nation conservative. Following her retirement from the House of Commons, May has been identified as a potential candidate in the 2024 University of Oxford Chancellor election to succeed Chris Patten.
Michael Andrew Gove is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations since October 2022, having previously held both offices from September 2021 to July 2022. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Surrey Heath from 2005 to 2024.
David Michael Gauke is a British political commentator, solicitor and former politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South West Hertfordshire from 2005 to 2019. He served in the Cabinet under Theresa May, most notably as Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor from 2018 to 2019. First elected as a Conservative, Gauke had the Conservative whip removed on 3 September 2019 and until the dissolution sat as an independent politician.
Roderick James Nugent Stewart, known as Rory Stewart, is a British academic, broadcaster, and former diplomat and politician. He is the Brady-Johnson Professor of the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs. He hosts The Rest Is Politics podcast with Alastair Campbell. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 2010 to 2019, and between 2015 and 2019 he served as a minister in four departments of the British Government. He then became a Cabinet minister as Secretary of State for International Development from May to July 2019.
Better Off Out (BOO) is the name of a non-party campaign that called for the United Kingdom (UK)'s withdrawal from the European Union (EU). It is run by The Freedom Association, a pressure group that describes itself as non-partisan, centre-right and libertarian, and has links to the Conservative Party, The Brexit Party and UK Independence Party (UKIP). The campaign was formed in 2006 and is based in Cheltenham, England.
Michael Grant Ignatieff is a Canadian author, academic and former politician who served as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has held senior academic posts at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and Toronto. Most recently, he was rector and President of Central European University; he held this position from 2016 until July 2021.
Sir Jacob William Rees-Mogg is a British politician and member of the Conservative Party serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Somerset since 2010. He served as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council from 2019 to 2022, Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency from February to September 2022 and Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from September to October 2022. Rees-Mogg previously chaired the eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG) from 2018 to 2019 and has been associated with socially conservative views.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British politician and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He was previously Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 2001 to 2008 and Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023.
Andrew John Stevenson is a British Conservative Party politician and active solicitor and director for the firms Bendles and Tiffen Estate Agents, who was first elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Carlisle.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019 with 47,074,800 registered voters entitled to vote to elect members of the House of Commons. The Conservative Party won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 48, on 43.6% of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 general election, though with a narrower popular vote margin than that achieved by Labour over the Conservatives in 1997.
Trudy Lynne Harrison is a British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Copeland from the February 2017 by-election to the 2024 general election. Her election marked the first time Copeland had elected a Conservative MP since 1931, and the first time the constituency had elected a female MP. Three months after her by-election victory, Harrison was re-elected in the 2017 general election and held her seat in 2019.
The 2019 Conservative Party leadership election was triggered when Theresa May announced on 24 May 2019 that she would resign as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 June and as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom once a successor had been elected. Nominations opened on 10 June; 10 candidates were nominated. The first ballot of members of Parliament (MPs) took place on 13 June, with exhaustive ballots of MPs also taking place on 18, 19 and 20 June, reducing the candidates to two. The general membership of the party elected the leader by postal ballot; the result was announced on 23 July, with Boris Johnson being elected with almost twice as many votes as his opponent Jeremy Hunt.
People's Vote was a United Kingdom campaign group that unsuccessfully campaigned for a second referendum following the UK's Brexit vote to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016. The group was launched in April 2018 at which four Members of Parliament spoke, along with the actor Patrick Stewart and other public figures.
Led By Donkeys is a British political campaign group, established in December 2018 as an anti-Brexit group, but which has also criticised other actions of the Conservative government. Since the group's creation its four founders have been calling out what they call "thermonuclear hypocrisy" and used satire targeted at pro-Brexit politicians. Led By Donkeys' main campaign consists of billboards containing past tweets by pro-Brexit politicians, or quotes presented as tweets. These tweets state the politicians' previous political positions, which according to the group have not stood the test of time.
This is a list of endorsements for declared candidates for the 2019 leadership election for the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom.
Brexit was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020. As of 2020, the UK is the only member state to have left the EU. Britain entered the predecessor to the EU, the European Communities (EC), on 1 January 1973. Following this, Eurosceptic groups grew in popularity in the UK, opposing aspects of both the EC and the EU. As Euroscepticism increased during the early 2010s, Prime Minister David Cameron delivered a speech in January 2013 at Bloomberg London, in which he called for reform of the EU and promised an in–out referendum on the UK's membership if the Conservative Party won a majority at the 2015 general election. The Conservatives won 330 seats at the election, giving Cameron a majority of 12, and a bill to hold a referendum was introduced to Parliament that month.
On 3 September 2019, the British Conservative Party withdrew the whip from 21 of its MPs who had supported an emergency motion to allow the House of Commons to undertake proceedings on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill on 4 September. In the hours after the vote, the Chief Whip Mark Spencer informed the rebel MPs that they were no longer entitled to sit as Conservatives. This led to the loss of the Conservative/DUP majority in the Commons.
The Rest Is Politics is a British podcast hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart. It launched in March 2022, and has since become one of the leading political podcasts in the United Kingdom. The podcast is produced by Goalhanger Podcasts. Campbell and Stewart generally discuss contemporary news and politics, with a strong focus on international developments, such as foreign elections and humanitarian catastrophes. An American edition was launched in April 2024 with Anthony Scaramucci and Katty Kay hosting.
Leading is a British podcast launched in January 2023. Hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, it is a sister podcast of their weekly politics podcast The Rest is Politics. The podcast is produced by Goalhanger Podcasts.
