Over the last few weeks, the news agenda has focussed squarely on the emerging splits within the Conservative party. Firstly, pressure came from the right of the Conservative party over Europe, forcing David Cameron to promise a referendum on Britain’s continuing EU membership after the next General Election, alienating the Europhile left of the party. Then, a poor Conservative performance against UKIP, a staunchly Eurosceptic party, on May 2nd put Cameron under further pressure from those on the Conservative right who want Britain to leave the EU.  Moreover, on May 20th, Cameron was forced to go begging for Labour votes in Parliament to defeat wrecking amendments on the government’s flagship same-sex marriage legislation, which were proposed by Tim Loughton, one of his own backbench MPs.   

With increasingly frequent backbench rebellions, now often involving over 100 MPs, and the most recent news that the Tories are polling under 30% of the vote, no wonder the Conservative party looks like it is drowning in clear blue water. Rumours abound on the Tory backbenches of plots to oust Cameron as party leader. The distraction of the media away from Conservative splits to the aftermath of the murder of a British soldier in Woolwich by a radicalized Islamist terrorist on May 22nd must almost have been welcomed as a relief.  

But this distraction will only be a temporary respite. Emerging evidence suggests that the split on the right in British politics is deeper and broader than many originally thought. Right-wing Conservative opposition towards gay marriage or Europe is not based purely on ethical grounds, but rather political and ideological grounds instead. The voting records of Conservative backbench rebels appear remarkably consistent on the central issues of contention, including gay marriage, Europe, and spending cuts. Many Conservative rebels are voting against Cameron not because they are against gay marriage, or want to leave the EU, but more because they dislike the entirety of Cameron’s modernising agenda since his election as Conservative leader in 2005 on ideological grounds.   

In some ways this recent tendency for splits within the Conservative party is a very recent phenomenon. The Conservatives in the twentieth century became the ‘natural party of government’ as the result of uniting the right wing of the political spectrum against the left, which was split between Labour and the Liberals.   

Although the right wing of the political spectrum has been splitting since the 1980s, three distinct groups have recently appeared.  The Lib Dems have revealed themselves under the coalition to be more similar in policy terms to centre-right 'Wet' Tories, such as John Major, than they are to Labour− in terms of their support of moderate austerity, social liberalism, and Europhilia.  Similarly, UKIP has proved to be the inheritor of the extreme 'Dry' Tories, who Margaret Thatcher championed in the 1980s, championing free market economics, social conservatism and Eurosceptism. In the middle remains what is left of the Conservative party, in an existential crisis between frontbench modernisers wanting to make the Conservative party look more like the Lib Dems, and backbench rebels who want a shift to the right to beat off the threat from UKIP.  

A split of this scale on the right in British politics is not unknown, but could prove very dangerous for the Conservative party. Back in 1846, the original ‘Conservative Party’ under Robert Peel split over a series of issues as diverse as the repeal of the Corn Laws, the funding of the Catholic Seminary at Maynooth in Ireland, and university expansion policy.  After this split, the front benchers under Peel became known as the ‘Liberal Conservatives’ and the backbench rebels called themselves the ‘Protectionist Conservatives’. Eventually, the frontbenchers dropped the ‘Conservative’ suffix and became known as the ‘Liberal Party’ (and later still the Liberal Democrats) whereas the rebels dropped the ‘Protectionist’ prefix and evolved into today’s ‘Conservative Party’. Nevertheless, both groups subsequently failed to win workable majorities in Parliament on their own for 22 years after 1846, until William Gladstone’s Liberal majority in the 1868 election. Food for thought for the Conservative party today.