Leaders of the Conservative Party

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This article is about leaders of the Conservative Party (UK). For leaders of the Conservative Party in Canada, see Leaders of Canadian federal conservative parties.

Leaders of the UK Conservative Party since 1834.

1 Background
2 Leaders in the House of Lords 1834-1922
3 Leaders in the House of Commons 1834-1922
4 Leader of the Conservative Party 1922-present

[edit] Background

Until 1922 there was no formal "Leader of the Conservative Party". The leaders of Conservative MPs and Conservative peers were regarded as coequal unless one of them was either the Prime Minister or a former Prime Minister, or if a particular crisis (as in 1846-1847 or 1916) had resulted in one clearly asserting authority over the other. In the periods when this was not the case (1881 - 1885, 1911 - 1916, 1921 - 1922) there was no clear "Leader of the Conservative Party" - this contributed to some of the internal party conflict at the time. The distinction of the leaders is often overlooked by many and there are lists in circulation that assume the eventual single leader who emerged after a period of coequal leadership was the leader from the outset. However this was not always the case - for example in 1881 it was widely expected that the Commons leader Sir Stafford Northcote would be the next Conservative Prime Minister but by the time the party had returned to government in 1885 political developments had resulted in the Lords leader Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury having the stronger claimant for the premiership.

In 1911 the Parliament Act reduced the power of the Lords and it seemed likely that the leader in the Commons would be preeminent. However, this was not formally recognised for another eleven years, and there were several occasions when members of the Lords were strongly considered for the leadership of the whole party after this time. From 1922 an overall leader has been formally elected by a joint meeting of MPs, Peers and prospective parliamentary candidates, even when the party is in opposition. Until 1965 this election was a rubber-stamp for the individual who had been already asked by the monarch to form a government. The leadership did not fall vacant at any time when the party was in opposition in this period: William Hague in 2001 was the first subsequent leader to resign without having served as Prime Minister. Since 1965, a succession of ballots have been held in order to chose between competing candidates. This was instigated by Alec Douglas-Home in 1964 after the confused circumstances of his own elevation in 1963.