The Spectre Haunting Conservatism: Europe and Backbench Rebellion

Abstract

Long before John Major could celebrate five years as Conservative Party leader, the party had fallen prey to the worst bout of in-fighting since the war, and arguably in this century. Such intra-party rebellion by backbench MPs can take many forms, from mild and private to wild and public; it can be intra- or extra-parliamentary, and can take place when the party is in opposition or in office. One occasional but serious form is backbench pressure to remove ministers, generally channelled through the ‘men in grey suits’, the leaders of the backbench 1922 Committee (Norton, 1994). Organised dissent in single-issue ginger groups, or in factions that pursue a range of linked policy objectives, is more serious, especially when it affects parliamentary behaviour. The once-conventional view of a PCP free of internal tendencies, factions and ginger groups has long been challenged, and from the perspective of 1995 it is hard to imagine how such a view was ever credible (Seyd, 1980; Brand, 1989; Barnes, 1994). Signing Early Day Motions (EDMs) is an important indication of dissent, but not rebellion against the Whips, as such motions are never ‘whipped’ (Finer, Berrington and Bartholomew, 1961; Berrington, 1973). Rebellion against the Whips in parliamentary divisions is far more serious (Jackson, 1968; Norton, 1975, 1978, 1980).

The stress placed upon loyalty and unity within the Conservative political tradition is an instinct as old as politics itself, all the more potent because Conservatism defends the privileges of a minority. Divisions within ruling strata are potentially more subversive and destructive than manifest divisions between those strata and the majority of the less privileged … The Conservative stress on pragmatism, compromise and the tempering of policy disagreements has its roots in the fear that confrontation between factions within the privileged groups could of itself undermine the whole structure of the political organisation of society. (Norton and Aughey, 1981, 50–1)