Preface

Summary

In December 2019, it looked as if the British Conservative Party had performed a feat of electoral escapology to match anything in its long history. The party had been in office since 2010, but never with a secure parliamentary majority. Its implementation of dramatic cuts in public spending – “austerity” – had incurred considerable public hostility during its coalition with the Liberal Democrats (2010–15), and although the party won a narrow overall majority in May 2015 the ensuing months were dominated by a bitter internal debate over an impending referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union (EU). When this took place in June 2016 a small majority of those who voted rejected the advice of the prime minister, David Cameron, and opted for withdrawal. Theresa May, chosen as Cameron's successor in preference to more colourful candidates, was unable to recreate a semblance of unity among her own party, let alone the public; a “snap” election called in 2017 in order to bolster her parliamentary position had the opposite effect. From the ensuing constitutional melee over the implementation of “Brexit”, none of the branches of British government emerged with enhanced public esteem; baulked by parliament and the courts, May had exhausted her personal authority long before standing down in July 2019.

To its critics – and, indeed, to many senior figures in its own ranks – this was a mess almost entirely of the Conservative Party's own making. The erstwhile “party of Europe”, and its allies in the mainstream media, had developed an obsession with the EU, ensuring that this potent source of division was a constant presence in the newspaper headlines which confronted a largely uncomprehending electorate. Spooked after 2012 by a surge in media and public support for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which made their own brand of “Euroscepticism” seem tepid, the Conservatives had responded by giving the voters a chance to channel their varied resentments into a one-off, single-issue decision. Cameron had been so confident of a victory for “Remain” that no serious preparations had been made in case the verdict went the other way.