The Voting Motivations of Conservative Parliamentarians in the Conservative Party Leadership Election of 2001

Abstract

This article examines the voting motivations of Conservative parliamentarians in the final parliamentary ballot of the Conservative party leadership election of 2001. By constructing a data set of the voting behaviour of Conservative parliamentarians in the final parliamentary party ballot, this article seeks to test a series of hypotheses relating to the ideological disposition and political characteristics of the candidates vis-à-vis their electorate. The article examines how and why the eliminative parliamentary ballot ensured that the party membership was presented with a face-off between the europhile, Kenneth Clarke, and the eurosceptic, Iain Duncan Smith, and why the modernising and socially liberal Michael Portillo was rejected. It will demonstrate that while arguments based on ideological factors are valid, the political characteristics of age and career status were also significant motivational influences that contributed to the rejection of Portillo and the delaying of the modernisation of the Conservative party.

Cameron and Liberal Conservatism: Attitudes within the Parliamentary Conservative Party and Conservative Ministers

“…The construction of this data set for the 2010 PCP follows the methodological pattern established in the aforementioned studies of the 1987, 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005 PCPs. The following sources have been utilised to ascertain the attitudes of each Conservative parliamentarian on each of the policy divides: division lists and early day motions (EDMs); and public comment (Heppell , 307–9; Heppell and Hill , 78; , 391; , 46). The process through which each Conservative parliamentarian is then defined on the ideological divides embraces and extends the methods developed by Read and Marsh (, 263–79).…”

“…The viability of this is dependent upon credible and testable data being assembled, and a clear understanding of what ideological cleavages exist within contemporary British Conservatism. A series of studies have been conducted to assess the ideological disposition of the PCP over the last five Parliaments between 1987 and 2010 (Norton ; Heppell ; Heppell and Hill , and ). These studies embraced and extended the methodological approach adopted by Norton (in his one‐dimensional study of the PCP over a ten year period between 1979 and 1989), alongside the multi‐dimensional conceptual framework developed in the moral‐economic‐European opinion groups advocated by Garry (Norton ; Garry ).…”

“…It was a contest that was resolved in favour of the dries over successive Parliaments, as ageing and predominantly wet Conservative parliamentarians either retired or were defeated, whilst the influx of new parliamentarians were predominantly dry (Bale , 385). Wet representation declined between the 1992 and 2005 Parliaments from 33 to 13 per cent; whilst dry representation increased from 56 to 80 per cent (Heppell ; Heppell and Hill , , ). With economic liberalism ‘firmly embedded’ within the PCP (Hayton , 493) this means that the dry/wet distinction is no longer a sufficiently salient enough ideological cleavage to require assessment in this analysis…”

Tales of the unexpected: The selection of British party leaders since 1963

“…The ultimate reason for Major's success, however, was that he won most support among the 'Party faithful', who constituted the majority of Conservative MPs (Cowley, 1999). For similar reasons, William Hague was preferred by the Party's MPs to the instinctively pro-European Kenneth Clarke in 1997 (Heppell and Hill, 2008), and Iain Duncan Smith preferred to the same opponent by its wider membership in 2001 (Alderman, 1998;Alderman and Carter, 1991;Alderman and Carter, 2002;Heppell and Hill, 2010;Stark, 1996: 127, 130, 132). In 2016, Theresa May was seen by most of the Party's MPs as the candidate most likely to restore party unity following the British electorate's decision in a referendum to leave the European Union, and Cameron's subsequent resignation.…”

Transcending Thatcherism? Ideology and the Conservative Party Leadership Mandate of David Cameron

“…They demonstrated that Duncan Smith, the eventual victor through the membership ballot, had a parliamentary support base that almost exclusively Thatcherite, and that he could not appeal to economic wets, pro-Europeans or social liberals. 6 Therefore, ideology was a signi®cant voting motivation for parliamentarians between 1975 and 2001 and there is a body of academic work to support this claim. This leads to a critical question: was ideology a signi®cant motivational in¯uence in the voting behaviour of Conservative parliamentarians in the 2005 Conservative party leadership election?…”