Between One-Nation Toryism and Neoliberalism: The Dilemmas of British Conservatism and Britain's Evolving Place in Europe

Prime Minister David Cameron's ambivalence about Britain's role in the European Union stems from dilemmas within his Conservative Party. Since the nineteenth century, British Conservatism had represented a comfortable synthesis of a soft Burkean traditionalism and class-based paternalism with an effort to expand the party's appeal to the working class. Thatcher's aggressive neoliberal challenge to this tradition never truly displaced the older paternalistic sense of noblesse oblige or the preference for societal consensus and incremental change. Instead, the two elements came into an uneasy coexistence that has informed Tory ambivalence about the EU. This article argues that Cameron's gradual distancing of Britain from the EU has paralleled his championing of economic austerity at home. It argues further that Cameron's policy-making response to the post-2007 economic downturn and European debt crisis can best be understood as a reflection of unresolved tensions within British Conservative thought. This article is part of the January 2015 Special Issue titled Interpreting British European Policy', which also includes Interpreting British European Policy by Mark Bevir, Oliver Daddow and Pauline Schnapper (DOI: ), Safeguarding British Identity or Betraying It? The Role of British Tradition' in the Parliamentary Great Debate on EC Membership, October 1971 by N. Piers Ludlow (DOI: ), The Return of Englishness' in British Political Culture - The End of the Unions? by Michael Kenny (DOI: ), Interpreting the Outsider Tradition in British European Policy Speeches from Thatcher to Cameron by Oliver Daddow (DOI: ), One Woman's Prejudice': Did Margaret Thatcher Cause Britain's Anti-Europeanism? by Cary Fontana and Craig Parsons (DOI: ), Euroscepticism and the Anglosphere: Traditions and Dilemmas in Contemporary English Nationalism by Ben Wellings and Helen Baxendale (DOI: ), Reworking the Eurosceptic and Conservative Traditions into a Populist Narrative: UKIP's Winning Formula? by Karine Tournier-Sol (DOI: ), The Labour Party and Europe from Brown to Miliband: Back to the Future? by Pauline Schnapper (DOI: ), Educating Britain? Political Literacy and the Construction of National History by Helen Brocklehurst (DOI: )