A SWOT Analysis of the UK Conservative Party Social Sciences Essay

2. CHOOSE ONE OF THE BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES WE HAVE EXPLORED ON THIS MODULE. ASSESS ITS CURRENT STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS.
A SWOT Analysis of the UK Conservative Party
Introduction
The UK Conservative Party is also known as the Unionist Party. Its other names are the Tory Party, Tories, and Conservatives. On the political spectrum, it is on the centre-right, governing the country with an 80-seat majority in UK General Election 2019 (where?). The Tories founded the Conservative Party (founded what?) in 1834 and, later on, it emerged as one of the two leading British political parties of the 19th century. Following an evolutionary trajectory, with the beginning of 20th century, the Labour Party became the Conservative's biggest rival. Here, it is worth mentioning that the noteworthy prime ministers of the party from previous century include Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher (Garnett, 2016). Boris Johnson, as their successor, currently leads the party. (This is a good start, and you mention all the important info here, but it looks like bullet pointes instead of connected sentences. You should rewrite it as if it flows, for example using reference words.)
As a centre-right party, the Conservatives promote conservatism as their core belief. The party marked various factionalism at different ages, involving one-nation conservatives, liberal conservatives, conservative liberals, and Thatcherites, with considerable modification in central ideologies. Majorly, they supported a free market economy by limiting federal control, and making state-owned properties private, like railway. (How does the beginning of this p-h relate to the approach to Brexit? P-h lacks cohesion. So, I suppose it would be better to either delete the Brexit information here, or rewrite something like: This kind of approach within the party is strongly rooted into conservative ideology of separation.) On a social level, the Conservatives support Sunday Blue laws and resist gay marriage (Garnett, 2016). Strategically, the Tories advocate a strong military proficiency and UK participation in NATO.
Boris Johnson won the 2019 election with an 80-seat majority. He led the government with great popularity, got Brexit done and advanced immigration reforms. However, the outbreak of the pandemic and his failure of lockdown policies proved to be an unfortunate turn to his government, turning a great deal of MPs and voters against him, weakening his potential as Britain's most dominant political party. The lockdown and decline in popularity, along with other internal tensions such as Islamophobia and the prime minister’s defiance of the theory of gravity (you should provide an example here or explain what you mean and simplify your point), are likely to affect the campaign for the upcoming elections. Besides, the campaign may be delayed due to the Covid-19 lockdown (Garnett, 2016). This essay takes a SWOT analysis of the Conservative Party, outlining in detail its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats by assessing the popularity of the leadership among voters, the relationship between the leader and MPs, the party's internal and external challenges, the impact of major decisions such as Brexit, healthcare and migration reforms, the potential of election canvassing, the impact of electoral voting, and the role and momentum of press and TV in supporting the party.
Definition of Key Terms (not sure if definitions are needed, as the reader, the professor, will know what these words mean. Why did you decide this would be appropriate? (Definitions are required as per the instructions. Please, refer to the part of instructions where the writer is advised to incorporate definitions of key terms in introduction).
Conservatism: sticking to the conventional attitude toward ideals, with no flexibility to accept change or modernisation.
Liberalism: readiness to accept innovations and change with respect to opposite ideals (Garnett, 2016).
Ideology: a set of philosophies and ideals, serving as foundation for political parties (Garnett, 2016).
Islamophobia: bias against the Muslims from a group of people in a political party (Forsyth 2019).
Brexit: the deal of UK to withdraw from the EU and restrict federal rights (BBC 2019).
Gravity: the attraction of a person toward an idea of belief like things are attracted towards the centre of the earth.
Canvassing: urging voters near election by the people of a party through communication.
Historical Perspective
Tories’ philosophy was mainly focused on free-economy that closely resembles today’s liberal market movement. The ideas went on shifting from one leader to another until they eventually got established in concrete shape during the era of Margaret Thatcher, a prominent leader of Conservative Party from 1979 to 1990. Her emphasis on privatization, liberal market, restricted labor movement, and refutation of wartime consensus is collectively termed as Thatcherism (Wittlinger, 2002). Despite being a firm advocate of privatization, Thatcher committed to the safety of National Health System (NHS).
It is evident that the pillars of Thatcherism have managed to carry through to this age. Most of the policies laid down by Boris Johnson continue to be in line with Churchill and Thatcher’s philosophy. For example, privatization is at its peak and the UK shows an urge to join mainstream global movements of liberal markets (Adedokun 2020). However, what distinguishes Boris from its predecessor’s is the approach towards NHS. There is noticeable skepticism surrounding the odds of NHS’ survival in Boris’ era. The leader has not yet taken concrete initiatives to keep the system safe from the upsurge of privatization and liberal economy in the region (Bercow 2019). Hence, the only exception in Thatcherist ideology may no longer remain an exception.
The Popularity and Competence of the Party among Voters
In the 2019 elections, Boris Johnson, the current prime minister of the Conservative party, got the majority of the seats, leaving Britain's second dominant political party behind, the Labour Party. The party won large numbers of seats in parts of Wales and northern England, with the bulk of the votes coming from the working class. A BBC report shows that the Conservatives won 365 seats in 2019 elections and re-emerged as the leading British political party (BBC, 2019). Before this, in 2016, they succeeded on UK’s 410 leave seats. The Labour party came in second, winning 40% of the remaining constituencies in the 2016 election (BBC, 2019). Another recent triumph of the Conservatives is its growing popularity among ‘blue collar’ occupations or labourers. From 2017 to 2019, they made progress by winning 100 constituencies from labour heartlands such as Scotland and Northern Ireland (BBC 2019). This has given rise to the number of voters giving competence to the party leadership. The current British political system is at divergence from the traditional class system. The class system was prevalent when the Labour Party, which declared its commitment to supporting the labour class, was prominently favoured by working class. On the other hand, the middle-class were more inclined to admire the Conservatives. In 2019, both ‘white-collar’ and ‘blue-collar’ have turned to follow the ideals of Tories (Curtice, 2019). As a result, they received 42% of support from both groups in the 2019 election, leaving the Labour Party behind with a 9% margin regarding only ‘blue-collar’, which was the greatest support for the party.
While the 2019 election results showed the conservative leadership to be dominating, admired, and supported by an increased number of voters, the party faced a critical drop in popularity in 2020 due to the circumstances related to the pandemic, and as a result, lockdown. Boris Johnson’s efforts to ease the lockdown policy by reopening schools on June 1 weakened the government’s reputation (McKie, 2020). For example, the Mayor of Manchester expressed rage over the Prime Minister’s strategy of approval for school opening (Helm et al., 2020). Particularly, it enraged the labour class, which supported the party leaving out the opposition. Youth and other voters also unleashed wrath over the reverse in lockdown restriction policies by the government (Woodcock, 2020). After plummeting in popularity due to his modification of his lockdown policies, Boris Johnson appeared again and again in the media in lengthy interviews to expose his thoughts on Covid-19 and associated strategies that positively influenced a great percentage of haters due to his approval for school opening in 2020. Hence, initiatives and proposals that appeared to contradict the Covid-19 precautionary directives seriously undermined the party's popularity despite its land-sliding victory in 2019 election.
Internal Threats and Challengers to the Party
Internal Tensions
The leadership skills and socialising of Boris Johnson seem to have failed during Covid-19 pandemic to sustain party discipline. Also, he could not maintain peace in the Parliament. Thus, he failed to fulfil the most essential responsibilities of a prime minister in the western politics. His ostracised advisor, Cumming, has made him take decisive measures that caused him criticism, and a considerable number of his MPs resigned. 41 MPs under the current leadership campaigned against the lockdowns model executed by the regional 3-tier system. One of the MPs resigned on the imposition of 10pm curfew by the government (Mason & Proctor, 2020). This is a sign that the Conservatives are going to collapse if the internal tensions continued without any practical response from the prime minister.
Prime Minister’s Defying of Gravity
Boris Johnson is known to have always survived the turmoil of his decisions (Mctague, 2020). This is what raised the parliamentary tension in British government after the breakout of Covid-19. Also, his strategic management failed to lower down the number or deaths at the end of 2020 (Mctague, 2020). He made mistake after mistake and could not understand the severity of situation. In his address, he says in the Marr interview, “what we want people to do is to behave fearlessly, but with common sense. Fearlessly, but with common sense” (Turner, 2021). This sounds like a joke, because common-sense demands nation to be precautious where complete fearlessness seems out of equation. This gravity-oriented attitude by the prime minister is the Conservative Party’s biggest weakness and challenge to its future maintenance.
Islamophobia
Islamophobia is another cause of internal disputes among MPs in Conservative Party. A great deal of party members had orders to quit for misusing social media to post anti-Islam material. Meanwhile, the spokesmen go (singular or plural?) on changing their remarks regarding these issues to prevent suspensions from the party. The hatred against Islam is a source of great division in the party (Forsyth, 2019). The current Parliament status shows an increased number of Muslim members holding seats, which foreshadows a bolder internal conflict for the Conservatives. Although Boris Johnson is revising terms to control this factor, it is known to be one of the major foundations of internal tension among the members of the Conservative Party. Hence, how a party’s manifesto portrays Islam, and its adherents has a significant impact on its reputation.
UKIP
Although UKIP, a right-wing British party, under the leadership of Neil Hamilton, is facing downward reputation, it had raised solid changes for both Conservatives and Labours in British politics in 2010, when it emerged as the largest UK political representation in the European Parliament. Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin write in their book about the threatening governmental force of UKIP for the Conservatives. They throw light on how this party gained power by supporting the cause of white labour class. This factor outstretched severe challenges for UK dominating political parties for election 2015 (Ford & Goodwin, 2014). Thereby, in case UKIP leadership wins supporters like its glorious past, it can pose strategical challenges to the Conservatives again by becoming a source of rages and resigns for the current UK government.
The Impact of Brexit, Healthcare, Immigration on Voters
Brexit
Boris Johnson was committed to lead the country with an official departure from the European Union (EU). To achieve this purpose, he revised the previous deal about leaving EU. He confessed that with majority of seats won by the Conservatives Party, he would work to get Brexit deal signed up to form the new Parliament. He stated that he had to make the Brexit deal done “do or die” to leave EU. Many of his member of the Parliament did not follow his decision in this regard when he announced to depart from EU on October 31 (BBC, 2019). As a result, he had to officially request EU to extend Brexit. However, at last, the deal happened on January 31, 2020, signing up paperwork disassociating UK from EU. Although the prime minister achieved his target regarding Brexit deal, it left the Parliament disposed to internal disputes and disagreements. 11 MPs left the ranks after disapproving the decision. 10 other MPs joined the party again after leaving it after conflict upon the Brexit decision (BBC, 2019). The current rebellion against the prime minister’s lockdown programme has fuelled the fire among the MPs and potential voters, already against leaving the EU, and further increased the party’s internal tensions even more. It shows that Johnson was ambitious to expedite the Britain’s partition with the EU.
Healthcare
The election pledge of Boris Johnson also included the construction of 40 hospitals. For this, he had announced to set aside 3.7bn. Following this project, four hospitals are under construction in Liverpool, north Cumbria, West Midlands, and Brighton fulfilling the voters’ expectations. Four others are pending in need of approval to be built in Manchester, Morpeth, London, and Nottingham. The 40 hospitals construction plan by the prime minister has to be completed by 2030. However, the authorities representing hospital trusts have claimed that the entire cost for the project can reach up to £20bn (Walker & Campbell, 2020). They consider the budget set aside for the whole healthcare scheme only a down payment, too insufficient to accomplish the construction of 40 hospitals by 2030. If the low budget halts the project, it can leave a highly negative impact on voters for the party for future elections.
Immigration
The prime minister has introduced Australian-styled, point-based immigration system, which seems to be one of the key purposes behind the Brexit. It will place restrictions on migrants who are ‘less skilled’. Both critics and voters feel disappointed by this immigration revolution in UK, condemning it as damaging to UK economy and frustrating the expectations of the voters (Brooks, 2020). The voters fear the future actions of the government under the deal of Brexit after immigration reforms UK. However, the prime minister has made the bill passed with the support of a Tory majority of 80 in Commons. Home Secretary Priti Patel has also defended the migration reforms as simpler, firmer, and helpful in a ‘high-skill’ economy (Staff, 2020). Although the admirers of immigration revolution are greater in number, it has advanced the division and internal tension of the party. Overall, the new immigration policy seems a positive step by Boris Johnson, which will make the economy and nation safer and more reputable around the world.
The Relationship between the MPs/Membership and the Government
Conservatives won election 2019 with a majority of seats, recording a historical triumph in politics. However, the membership with leader, Boris Johnson, faced various internal conflicts majorly due to Brexit, Immigration Reforms and Covid-19 lockdowns.
Brexit
“Get Brexit done”, the slogan by Boris Johnson, brought result when he got the deal done on January 31, 2020. Although the prime minster left EU with a support of MPs who demanded paperwork done to meet their expectations to sign up the deal, it also profoundly divided his party. 21 MPs bade farewell to the Parliament after the decision. Nevertheless, the 10 of them joined again, but they disapproved the Brexit when quitting their support to the party (BBC, 2019). It is true to say that the Brexit heavily told upon the MPs support to the leadership.
Immigration Revolution
Boris Johnson’s success in achieving the approval for point-based immigration system and restrictions imposed on immigration...