Intra-party dissent over Brexit in the British Conservative Party

Abstract

This article seeks to map the evolution of intra-party dissent over Brexit in the parliamentary Conservative Party between July 2016 and January 2020. It shows that dissent was primarily due to the relentless intra-party disputes over the fact that the Conservative Government failed to deliver Brexit during Theresa May’s premiership. Brexit could not have been settled if Boris Johnson had not managed to reunite the party through the 2019 general election. This article gauges the intensity of intra-party dissent by drawing on three representative indicators, including the number of Conservative MPs quitting the party, the number of ministerial resignations and parliamentary voting records of the Conservative MPs over Brexit. Three dominant factional groups, namely hard Brexiteers, soft Brexiteers and Bremainers, competed to shape the government’s handling of Brexit. They diverged over issues of sovereignty, economic implication of Brexit, and the UK–EU future relationship. The research also finds that the hard Brexiteers and the Bremainers appeared less compromising over Brexit, while the soft Brexiteers with a pragmatic mindset were relatively flexible and ready for concessions.