Intra-party Dissent Over European Integration In The Conservative Party

Intra-party dissent is a widespread phenomenon in party politics.In light of individual preferences,political parties whose members are convened by similar ideologies remain vulnerable to factionalism.With the continued deepening and widening,European integration has already been one of the most critical and sensitive issues in the history of British politics.In the past few decades,the UK Conservative Party posed as an active promoter for a long time.However,as Euroscepticism spreads in the party,intra-party dissent over European integration has been continuously deteriorating.The internal dissent has directly or indirectly caused the resignation of three Conservative Prime Ministers,including Margret Thatcher,John Maj or and David Cameron.The incumbent Prime Minister Theresa May is also suffering from the internal rebellion,and her Brexit deals have been repeatedly defeated in the parliament.She was forced to promise her resignation before the next phase of Brexit negotiation.Considering the growing significance of intra-party dissent over European integration in the Conservative Party,this thesis will focus on the discussion ofits internal factions,focal points of contestation and the possible solutions for the internal division.This thesis absorbs the theoretical essence of the postfunctionalist theory.Combined with the findings of other pertinent researches,the theoretical framework is originally established.This thesis basically depends on the qualitative study method,the case study method in particular,to analyse the historical change in the development of intra-party dissent.The cases are selected according to three historical phases of the UK-EU relationship-membership applications,contributory participation and withdrawal negotiations.The data collected mainly derive from the debate records of the UK Parliament,the released speeches of Tory leaders,the Conservative manifestos,the UK Government official documents and reports,influential media reports and so forth.Based on the research,this thesis argues that there exist three distinctive factions in the Conservative Party,namely rejectionists,pragmatists and integrationalists.Generally speaking,rejectionists strongly oppugn further integration,call for protection of absolute sovereignty,hold a negative view of the EU membership,and accentuate its economic costs.Pragmatists are cautious but flexible on the issue of sovereignty.They principally support the participation in the integration,and firmly believe that the UK would substantially benefit from the economic integration.Additionally,optimistic integrationalists insist that the UK should seize the initiative in the integration projects and play a leading role in the Community.They also emphasise the profound economic importance of the EU membership.In different historical periods,the influence of factions is also relatively different.In the 1960s and the early 1970s,the intra-party division mainly existed between rej ectionists and integrationalists.Since the 1980s,with the increase of Euroscepticism in the Conservative Party,the integrationalist faction has gradually declined while pragmatists have become the primary rival of rejectionists.Pragmatists have been growingly sceptical since David Cameron.Concerning sovereignty,they do not only request the termination of power transfer,but also strive to repatriate the parliamentary power that has been ceded to Europe and the economic interests that the UK has lost.Moreover,there are two major concerns of the intra-party dissent-national identity and interests.Identity is at the core of the postfunctionalist theory which claims that the traditional left/right ideology loses its explanatory power when it comes to explaining the party dissent problem on European integration.This thesis argues that other than mass publics,the attitudes of political elites toxwards European integration are influenced by this factor as well.It can be reflected by their preferences over sovereignty.It is the degree of compatibility between their British identity and European identity that results in the different understandings of sovereignty.It should also be noticed that ''sovereignty" in this thesis does not refer to territorial sovereignty but parliamentary sovereignty and the autonomy of the UK Government.National interest is another essential factor in causing intra-party dissent yet absent in the postfunctionalist theory.In theory,national interests embrace three major areas-economic interests,international prestige and security interests.However,Tory members have reached the consensus in terms of international prestige,that the UK is supposed to exert its global influence as an independent power instead of as a part of Europe.On security interests,selective participation is more preferable under the framework of the NATO.In this sense,the internal division rests with the economic aspect,and thus the calculation of benefits and costs becomes the subj ect of debate.In order to deal with the intra-party dissent,the Conservative leaders tend to employ three tactics-control over politicisation,patronage and discipline.The public attitudes towards Europe are not as stable as the elites in the Whitehall.Handing over the decision right to the public would be risky.Therefore,most party leaders prefer to control the politicisation at the parliamentary level in case of the uncertainty.The strategy of patronage is also frequently used in resolving the internal conflict.On the one hand,offering supporters the key posts of policymaking can enhance the leadership in the contestation.On the other hand,providing marginal posts for dissenters helps placate the rebels and bind them to the government policy so that they would be more discreet about thwarting leaders' plans.Discipline means the party leaders may resort to their power of appointment and removal,the cabinet reshuffle and expelling rebels for instance,and restrain backbenchers through party whips particularly by calling three-line whips.This thesis endeavours to make a humble contribution to the research of intra-party dissent by setting originally designed theoretical framework and performing empirical analysis with the most salient cases in history.Previous studies in relation to intra-party dissent basically did not involve the withdraw referendum in 2016.This thesis extended the empirical analysis to the post-Brexit era so as to track the latest development in the field.