British conservatism after the vote for Brexit: The ideological legacy of David Cameron
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148117737278 |
| Author | Richard Hayton |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2017
Article
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
British conservatism after
2018, Vol. 20(1) 223 –238
© The Author(s) 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117737278
DOI: 10.1177/1369148117737278
The ideological legacy of
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
David Cameron
Richard Hayton
Abstract
Following the referendum on membership of the European Union (EU), this article assesses the
ideological legacy of David Cameron on Conservative politics in Britain. It focuses on three areas of
ideological tension in contemporary conservatism, namely, European integration, the divide between
social liberals and traditionalists, and the future of the Union post-Brexit. Applying the concept
of heresthetics to offer a theoretically informed account, it argues that while Cameron enjoyed
some successes in ‘the art of political manipulation’ with electoral benefits, his desire to modernize
conservatism was ultimately undone by his failure to restructure the key issue dimensions animating
his party’s ideology. Ultimately, this failure undid his premiership, leading to his downfall.
Keywords
Brexit, conservatism, Conservative Party, David Cameron, European integration, heresthetics
Introduction
It was not meant to end this way. Following his unexpected triumph in the 2015 general
election, David Cameron outlined his plans for his next term of office in a statement out-
side Number 10 Downing Street. In it, he spoke of his desire to ‘bring our country
together’, which meant:
giving everyone in our country a chance, so no matter where you’re from you have the
opportunity to make the most of your life. It means giving the poorest people the chance of
training, a job, and hope for the future. (Cameron, 2015a)
The Prime Minister hoped that a focus on social justice and this life chances agenda,
which he would flesh out further in a speech the following January (Cameron, 2016b),
would come to define his final term of office. However, the Conservatives’ largely unfore-
seen outright victory in the general election also meant something else for the new
University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Corresponding author:
Richard Hayton, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
Email: r.hayton@leeds.ac.uk
224
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(1)
Cameron government, to which he dedicated a single line: ‘And yes, we will deliver that
in/out referendum on our future in Europe’ (Cameron, 2015a).
The promise of a vote on UK membership of the European Union (EU) was ‘borne from
tactical considerations concerning party management and party competition’ (Lynch, 2015:
200). When he made this pledge in January 2013, Cameron was exercised by the rise in
support for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the not unrelated growing restiveness
among Eurosceptics on his own backbenches. Warned in November 2012 by the Deputy
Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, that his plan to renegotiate British membership of the EU and
hold a referendum was ‘hugely risky’, Cameron replied ‘You may be right. But what else
can I do? My backbenchers are unbelievably Eurosceptic and UKIP are breathing down my
neck’ (quoted in Laws, 2016: 237). Cameron’s undertaking was, theoretically at least,
dependent on securing a Conservative majority at the next election, and commentators
accordingly speculated that the Prime Minister would happily trade it away in a future
round of coalition negotiations. However, in practice, he knew that if the 2015 election were
to deliver another hung parliament and he sought to lead a second coalition, a failure to
secure agreement to hold the referendum would in all likelihood enrage enough of his back-
benchers to scupper any such deal. Cameron consequently signalled that the referendum
pledge would be a red-line in any future coalition negotiations. Senior Liberal Democrats
were also aware of this and were prepared to concede it, should the situation arise. As one
of the party’s special advisers in Downing Street later commented, ‘we were definitely
going to go along with it, [and] had basically said so in public’ (Kemp, 2016).
Following his 2015 win, it was soon reported that Cameron wished to bring forward
the date of the referendum, which he had pledged in the Conservative manifesto to hold
by the end of 2017. Government sources indicated days after the election that they wished
to ‘accelerate the process’ (Watt, 2015), and the EU Referendum Bill was the most promi-
nent feature of the Queen’s Speech outlining the new administration’s programme a few
weeks later. During the 2015 general election campaign, David Cameron had let slip in a
television interview that he did not plan to fight another, although he insisted he planned
to serve ‘a full second term’ (BBC News, 2015). Conscious no doubt of the clock ticking
on his tenure in Number 10, the Prime Minister exuded the appearance of a man in a
hurry, keen to get the referendum over with so that he could focus in his remaining years
at the top on the wider legacy of his premiership. Tragically for him, his place in history
is condemned to be indelibly defined by the issue of Europe and the nation’s decision,
against his fervent advice, to leave the EU. Like Thatcher and Major before him,
Cameron’s premiership was ultimately destroyed by his party’s fissure over Europe.
This article considers the Cameron legacy for conservatism by analysing it along three
aspects that have been central to defining it in recent years. The first is the issue of
European integration, which has been the key rift within the Conservative Party since the
late 1980s (Gamble, 1996: 22). The second is the union between the nations of the United
Kingdom, which was one of the pillars of Conservative hegemony during the 20th cen-
tury (Gamble, 1995), but has been under increasing strain in the 21st century. And the
third is the morality divide between social liberals and traditionalists, which has been
particularly prominent over the past decade (Hayton, 2012; Heppell 2013b). It should be
noted at the outset that ‘conservatism’ is used here to refer primarily to the ideology of the
British Conservative Party. This is not to deny the broader field of conservative political
thought that lies beyond this, but this is outside of the scope of this article.
In theoretical terms, this article starts from the position that ‘ideology matters’, and
that ideological positioning continues to be an ‘an important concern for political parties’
Hayton
225
and those that lead them (Buckler and Dolowitz, 2012: 576), even if rhetorically party
leaders in recent decades have engaged in ‘ideological quietism’, fuelling the perception
that politics has become less ideologically driven than it once was (Dommett, 2016). As
such it contributes to the growing body of scholarship that has challenged this view
(Buckler and Dolowitz, 2009, 2012; Finlayson, 2012; Griffiths and Hickson, 2010; Kerr,
2007), and indeed the persistent (and more longstanding) one that the Conservative Party
is somehow non-ideological (Green, 2004). It builds on previous scholarship that has
argued that contemporary Conservative politics needs to be understood in terms of the
ideational debates that underpin it, as well as questions of leadership and electoral context
(Hayton, 2012, 2016).
Moreover, the article deploys the concept of heresthetics to analyse the Cameron leg-
acy for conservatism. Originally formulated by William Riker (1983), heresthetics has
been utilized in more recent years to analyse a range of political figures including former
Conservative leaders Margaret Thatcher (McLean, 2001) and Stanley Baldwin (Taylor,
2005). Central to the concept is Riker’s contention that politicians will attempt to struc-
ture the political world to their advantage, through political manipulation of issue dimen-
sions (McLean, 2002; Riker, 1986). In Riker’s (1983: 55) words, it is:
the art of setting up situations—composing the alternatives among which political actors must
choose—in such a way that even those who do not wish to do so are compelled by the structure
of the situation to support the heresthetician’s purpose. (Riker, 1983: 55)
We can understand heresthetics as encompassing the ‘attempts of political actors to set or
control agendas, reformulate procedures, transform policy or issue space and redefine
situations so as to create new possibilities’ (Finlayson and Martin, 2008: 451). This often
involves denying adversaries ‘policy or political space’ (Bennister, 2015: 168). In terms
of the ideological legacy of a leader on their party, our attention is directed towards how
they have attempted to transform issue spaces, control political agendas and debates, and
close off issue space to ideological opponents.
Of particular relevance to this study is the article by Heppell (2013a) analysing the
party leadership of David Cameron between 2005 and 2012 through the prism of heres-
thetics. Heppell argued that Cameron attempted to bring about a realignment of British
politics through the formation of the Coalition government with the Liberal Democrats,
seeking to occupy and redefine the political centre-ground. He credits Cameron with suc-
cessful manipulation of his coalition partners—a view that was vindicated by the 2015
...
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