Conservatism

Of all the great political traditions, conservatism is the hardest to pin down as a tidy set of doctrines — and that is partly the point. Conservatives have often defined themselves less by a fixed blueprint for society than by a temperament: a preference for the tried over the untried, a respect for inherited institutions, and a deep scepticism that society can be safely redesigned from first principles. This article sets out conservatism’s core ideas and then traces the two strands that have defined the modern UK Conservative Party: one-nation conservatism and the Thatcherite New Right.

Core ideas: tradition, order and scepticism

At conservatism’s heart is a regard for tradition. Conservatives see inherited institutions and customs as the accumulated wisdom of past generations — arrangements that have survived precisely because they work. Rather than judging society against abstract reason alone, they trust practice that has been tested by time. This connects to a characteristic scepticism about radical change. Conservatives doubt that human reason is powerful enough to remake society without unleashing unintended consequences, so they favour cautious, incremental reform. The conservative ideal, often put as “changing in order to conserve”, is to adapt institutions gradually so as to preserve what is valuable in them.

Underpinning this is a cautious view of human nature, seen as fallible and limited rather than perfectible. From that flows the conservative emphasis on order: strong institutions, law and authority are needed to restrain human imperfection and provide the stability within which liberty and prosperity can flourish. Conservatives also tend to picture society as organic — a living body that has grown naturally, with interdependent parts (families, communities, institutions) — rather than as a machine to be re-engineered. And they are famously pragmatic, prizing what works over rigid doctrine, which has allowed conservative parties to adapt across very different eras.

Burke and the conservative reaction

The intellectual touchstone is Edmund Burke, whose Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) is often treated as conservatism’s founding text. Writing as the French Revolution unfolded, Burke attacked its attempt to sweep away inherited institutions and rebuild society on abstract principles like the “rights of man”. He warned that such projects, however noble in theory, ignored the complexity of real societies and would end in disorder and tyranny. In their place he defended gradual, organic change and inherited institutions, famously describing society as a partnership “between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born”. Burke was not opposed to all reform — he favoured timely, prudent change — but he insisted it must build on existing foundations rather than demolish them.

One-nation conservatism

Within British conservatism, two strands have competed for dominance. The first is one-nation conservatism, associated with Benjamin Disraeli in the nineteenth century. Disraeli warned that industrial Britain risked splitting into “two nations”, the rich and the poor, who lived as if in separate worlds. One-nation conservatism responds with an emphasis on social cohesion and a sense of duty owed by the better-off to the rest of society. It accepts a more paternalistic, active state — willing to use government to soften social division, maintain a degree of welfare and bind the nation together. The motive is conservative rather than egalitarian: social unity and stability are valued as ends in themselves, and reform is a way of preserving the social order by giving everyone a stake in it.

Thatcherism and the New Right

The second strand is Thatcherism, linked to Margaret Thatcher and the broader New Right of the 1970s and 1980s. This combined two elements that do not always sit comfortably together. The first is neo-liberalism: a belief in free markets, privatisation, lower taxes, deregulation and “rolling back the state” in economic life, on the view that markets allocate resources better than government and that individual enterprise should be unleashed. The second is neo-conservatism: a firm emphasis on social order, authority, the nation and traditional values. The New Right thus paired a smaller economic state with a strong state on questions of law, order and national identity.

Compared with one-nation conservatism, Thatcherism is far more individualist in economics and more sceptical of state intervention to manage social outcomes, while sharing conservatism’s broader attachment to order and nation. The contrast between these two strands — the paternalistic, cohesion-minded one-nation tradition and the market-oriented Thatcherite tradition — remains the principal internal divide within the modern Conservative Party, shaping its arguments over the size of the state, public spending and the balance between free markets and social solidarity. Both, however, draw on the same deeper conservative instincts: a respect for what endures, a wariness of grand designs, and a belief that order and continuity are worth defending.