What British Tories Reveal About the GOP

For the last half decade, the British Conservative Party has been a populist party. In June of 2016, the British public voted for “Brexit,” causing the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. Moderates in the Conservative, or the “Tory” Party, were mortified: they tend to favor good relations with Europe, as well as free trade policy. As such, moderate Prime Minister David Cameron resigned, citing that he’d be unable to carry out such a dramatic policy he didn’t believe in. In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, new Prime Minister Theresa May attempted to lead the British people through Brexit with a moderate approach. When that didn’t work for party hardliners, Boris Johnson became elevated to the top job in Britain. As a Brexit hardliner, Johnson’s strategy for the 2019 British election campaign centered around winning old, industrial towns in the North of England, similar to America’s Rust Belt of old steel and mining industry towns in the upper Midwest. Johnson won that election in a landslide, marking a major shift in the British Conservative Party from favoring neo-liberal economic and social policies to a populist, more right-wing direction.

Let’s pause for a second. The Republican Party used to be known for country club Republicans like Mitt Romney and John McCain who favored laissez-faire economics and talked more about tax cuts than tariffs. That changed in 2016 with the election of Donald Trump, who won by flipping industrial states in the Upper Midwest and turning the Republican Party in a more populist direction. The parallel is there: the right-of-center party in both countries made a shift to populism which won the following elections by appealing to traditionally left leaning industrial labor areas. These areas are often deeply religious and therefore socially conservative, yet liberal in their economic views as a result of deep seeded histories of organized labor. Therefore, while a moderate libertarian economy-focused candidate would lose those areas, a socially conservative populist would be more likely to capture them.

This tension between moderates and populists came to a head just a month ago in Britain. The current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, strikes a balance between hardliners and moderates. Elected to finish the Brexit transition, he’s been seen as a fairly conservative Prime Minister, albeit more polished than Boris Johnson’s Trumpian style. However, that’s started to change. In early November, Rishi Sunak announced a major change in his cabinet, where he fired right-wing Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who oversees British national security, including immigration policy. Moreover, he brought into his cabinet a new foreign secretary in a move that shocked pundits: former Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron, an Oxford-educated establishment man of affluent background is seen as a symbol of the old school Tory party: polished, royalist, pro-European and centrist. This has sparked fears within the populist right-wing of the Tories that Sunak is ditching the faction of the party that elected him in favor the old party, with Braverman accusing Sunak of violating his promises to the British people to end mass migration, saying in her resignation letter “I trusted you.” Other right-wing parliamentarians have said that the best way for the Conservative Party to win the next election is by replacing their winning strategy in 2019. This comes at a time when the British Conservative Party is in a time of deep crisis: they are down nearly 20% in the polls. If that were the result, it would be one of the biggest landslides in British political history.

Crossing the pond again, we find a scenario for American Republicans that is both similar and different. The Populist wing of the Republican Party still has a firm foothold on the base, with Donald Trump far ahead of moderate Nikki Haley in primary polls. However, the most recent election results show that voters are rejecting current Republican messaging on important issues despite a somewhat unpopular Democratic incumbent president. This has been seen in Kentucky, Virginia, and Ohio. 

It does feel like the politics of British and American conservative parties have similarities that can teach us lessons about the path forward. Going forward, I believe it is fair to expect these narratives to diverge. The broad Tory Party frustration with Johnson that eventually forced him out of office will lead to a gradual shift back towards country club-esque moderate conservative politics among British Tories within the next decade, already seen with the recent cabinet shuffle. In America, however, it’ll take more time. For now, the Republican Party is the party of Trump, and with him in 2024 and whoever he endorses in 2028 being the party nominee, the soul of the Republican Party has seemingly for the moment shifted in the hands of populists.

Romen Der Manuelian ‘27 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at d.romen@wustl.edu.