Conservative Party (UK)

## Conservative and Unionist Party

Conservatism (British)
 Economic Liberalism
 British Unionism

The Conservative Party, officially the **Conservative and Unionist Party**, and also known colloquially as the **Tories**, is one of two main political parties in the United Kingdom, alongside its primary rival since the 1930s, the Labour Party. The Conservative Party is current governing party in the United Kingdom, winning the 2019 general election with an overall majority in the House of Commons. The party is on the centre-right of the political spectrum, and encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, liberal conservatives and conservative liberals. The party currently has 358 Members of Parliament, 257 appointed members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Welsh Parliament, 4 directly elected mayors, 30 police and crime commissioners, and approximately 7,500 local authority councillors.

The Conservative Party was founded in 1834 from the Tory Party and was one of two dominant political parties in the 19th century, along with the Liberal Party. Under Benjamin Disraeli, it played a preeminent role in politics at the height of the British Empire. In 1912, the Liberal Unionist Party merged with the party to form the Conservative and Unionist Party. Following this, the Labour Party became the Conservatives' main rival. To this day, both the Conservative and Labour parties have the greatest significance within the country and are the largest political parties within the United Kingdom, in terms of electoral representation as well as total number of registered members.

In 2010, the Conservatives came to power via a coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats, ending 13 years of Labour government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Following the 2015 general election, the Conservatives formed a government with a small 12-seat majority. A snap general election in 2017 resulted in the Conservatives losing their majority and governing through a confidence and supply arrangement with the Democratic Unionist Party. In the 2019 general election, the Conservatives won by a landslide with an 80 seat majority.
The party has generally adopted liberal economic policies favouring free markets, including deregulation, privatisation, and marketisation, since the 1980s, although historically it advocated for protectionism. The party is British unionist, opposing a united Ireland, Scottish and Welsh independence, and has been critical of devolution. Historically, the party supported the continuance and maintenance of the British Empire. The party has taken various approaches towards the European Union (EU), with eurosceptic and, to an increasingly lesser extent, pro-European factions within it. It embraced a strongly eurosceptic position, with the slogan "*Get Brexit Done*", following the decision to leave the EU in a referendum held under the Conservative Cameron government. It historically took a socially conservative approach, but its social policy has become more liberal, evidenced by the legalisation of same-sex marriage under the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Cameron-Clegg coalition in 2014, the lifting of the ban on women in combat roles in the military in 2016 under the Cameron government and the legalisation of medical cannabis in 2018 under the second May ministry. In defence policy, it favours a strong military capability including an independent nuclear weapons programme and commitment to NATO membership.

The party's voting and financial support base has historically consisted primarily of homeowners, business owners, real estate developers and middle class voters, especially in rural and suburban areas of England. Since the EU referendum, the Conservatives have also targeted working class voters in small and medium sized urban areas which were traditionally Labour supporting. The Conservatives’ domination of British politics throughout the 20th century and its re-emergence in the 2010s has led to it being referred to as one of the most successful political parties in the Western world.

The London, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish branches of the party are semi-autonomous. The Conservatives are a founding member party of both the International Democrat Union and the European Conservatives and Reformists Party.