• 1 May, Theresa, Conservative Party Conference, Bournemouth, 7 October 2002, https://www.theguardian.c (...)
• 2 Anthony Seldon with Raymond Newell, May At 10 (London, Biteback Publishing Ltd., 2019), p. 12 (Inte (...)
• 3 Ibid., p. 12.
• 4 May’s Conference Speech, 7 October 2002.
• 5 Ibid.
• 6 The expression One Nation Toryism is also used albeit more rarely now. But just as Conservative Par (...)

1Although she already had a long history as a member of the Conservative Party, and had already served for five years as an MP, Theresa May rose to prominence when a short extract from her 2002 conference speech was widely cited in the media. She was then party Chairwoman and, at the end of a rather long speech in which she elaborated on her vision of how to enable the party to ‘return to government’, she bluntly admitted: ‘But let’s not kid ourselves. [...] Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us – the nasty party’.1 To a certain extent, this was to be a defining moment for Theresa May who, in addition to appearing as a no-nonsense politician who was not afraid of speaking truth to power, was also demonstrating that she meant to be seen as a game changer whose Conservatism was different from that which had prevailed for the last three decades. In this speech, May established her reputation as a moderniser, a reputation she was to defend later. When David Cameron and George Osborne were described as the party’s modernisers, she purportedly reacted rather angrily, arguing instead: ‘I am the person who gave the nasty speech. I am the original moderniser’.2 As it happens, her nasty party speech was not her own work. It had been written by Chris Wilkins, who was to become the Number Ten Strategy Director, although Wilkins revealed to Anthony Seldon that she had personally insisted on this particular phrase being added.3 The nasty party speech itself did not contain much indication of May having a One Nation approach at the time, although she did mention her belief in an ‘active government [which] should focus on doing what it can to help people get on with their lives’, this being ‘the true measure of a compassionate government’.4 Nonetheless, there was no call for direct government involvement in the form of social and welfare policies to foster social harmony and promote a fairer Britain. Rather, after admitting that ‘today the challenge is reform of public services’, she went on to introduce the two colleagues who would set out the reforms to meet such a challenge, warning however that ‘none of them will be about more centralised government or more meddling by politicians. All of them will be about trusting people to get on with their jobs’.5 If anything, this bore more resemblance to neoliberal right-wing Conservatism and its emphasis on less government and more individual agency and involvement by civil society than with One Nation Conservatism. Or did it? Or was that speech, written by some else and whose boldest announcements were immediately qualified, to herald May’s whole political career? What is One Nation Conservatism6 after all? Or was that speech, written by some else and whose boldest announcements were immediately qualified, a metaphor for May’s political beliefs and career?

• 7 Robert Walsha, ‘One Nation Group and One Nation Conservatism, 1950-2002’ in Contemporary British Hi (...)
• 8 Ibid., p. 70.
• 9 Peter Dorey and Mark Garnett, « ‘The weaker-willed, the craven-hearted’: the decline of One Nation (...)

2Although the phrase is attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, widely understood as the father of One Nation Conservatism, it is actually Stanley Baldwin who should be credited with coining the phrase.7 Baldwin built on Disraeli’s vision which, incidentally, Robert Walsha describes as a myth more than a reality.8 He also built on the distinction Disraeli made between two nations seemingly separated by everything in his novel: Sibyl and the Two Nations. Disraeli believed that government had a moral duty to intervene to promote social peace, described by Peter Dorey as ‘a positive view of the state as a potential promoter of social harmony’,9 at a time when the likelihood of a class war erupting was sufficiently present to force politicians to consider adapting to a new social order. This explains the association between One Nation Toryism and state interventionism in the industrial as well as the social sectors. It also validates the notion that the concept integrates a more compassionate approach to government’s role in society, an organic entity whose members depend on one another. Importantly, Disraeli’s Manchester and Crystal Palace speeches of April and June 1872 outlined his vision of the nation that was no longer to be considered as divided by class and sectional interests but considered as one:

• 11 David Seawright, The British Conservative Party and One Nation Politics (London, The Continuum Publ (...)
• 12 With the notable exception of the Thatcher years.
• 13 Tim Bale, ‘Memo to May. Don’t forget One Nation, Prime Minister’ in Conservatism Home, https://www. (...)

4Because the electoral consideration was uppermost in Disraeli’s mind, One Nation Toryism has also often been described as a pragmatic approach to winning elections11, particularly at times when the perception that the country is divided generates calls for unity, coming from a party that, from the outset, has described itself as pragmatic rather than ideological.12 The concept of One Nation is also an essential message for unionists who extoll the merits of the United Kingdom standing as a multinational state as, after all, the Conservative Party has been the Conservative and Unionist Party since 1912. David Seawright even envisages One Nation as primarily a rhetorical device and argues that most of the politicians associated with the approach, starting from Disraeli and Baldwin onwards, often failed to live up to their reputation. Tim Bale argues that Disraeli did not have ‘much practical involvement in some of the 19^th century social and industrial reforms retrospectively associated with it’.13 Recent historiography seems to point to One Nation being more of a myth than a reality and there now seems to be a relative consensus on the idea that the contemporary One Nation label is often associated with Conservatism to reach out to a disaffected electorate, to those who feel they have been left behind.

• 14 Seldon, May At 10, p. 11.

6The issue under consideration is whether Theresa May’s Conservatism met any, some or all aspects of One Nation Conservatism and whether her brand of Conservatism can be considered more left-wing than other currents. From the outset, Theresa May differed from her direct predecessor, David Cameron. Unlike him, she was not a member of the One Nation Group. Although she claimed to be the ‘original moderniser’, she cut a very traditional figure with what Seldon describes as ‘her middle class, provincial and conservative outlook’.14 Yet, her first speech as Prime Minister established ideological proximity with Cameron as she would lead the government ‘in the same one-nation spirit as he had’:

• 16 For example, see BBC News, ‘Theresa May vows to be 'one nation' prime minister’, https://www.bbc.co (...)
• 17 Seldon, May At 10, pp. 47-48.
• 18 May’s First speech as PM, 13 July 2016.
• 19 Kevin Hickson, Robert Page and Ben Williams, ‘Strangled at birth: The One Nation ideology of Theres (...)
• 20 Nicholas Allen and Judith Bara, ‘Marching to the Left? Programmatic Competition and the 2017 Party (...)
• 21 There are also very serious limits as to the extent of her compassion, exemplified by the ‘hostile (...)

7Thereafter, the media widely portrayed Theresa May as the new One Nation Prime Minister.16 Shortly afterwards, however, she set about distancing herself from the Conservatism that Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne represented, i.e. the Conservatism of an endowed upper-class elite carried by a sense of entitlement that Seldon says May had ‘a profound dislike for’.17 The One Nation prefix was subsequently dropped altogether to be replaced by a Conservatism ‘that works for everyone’.18 Did some of the ethos of One Nation remain? Kevin Hickson, Robert Page and Ben Williams hypothesise that she ‘held a particular configuration of the One Nation tradition’, which they termed ‘soft One Nation’ to distinguish it from the ‘strong One Nation Conservatism of the post-war era’,19 an opinion not shared by Nicholas Allen and Judith Bara who describe her 2017 manifesto as ‘the most left-wing manifesto since 1964’.20 There is a convergence between all these views as none seem to question the validity of the association between Theresa May and One Nation Conservatism. They also place important onus on individual agency, that of Theresa May, rather than that of the team with which she was working, indicating that May was a consistent and original thinker and that her vision was consistent as well. Furthermore, they imply that Theresa May had strong beliefs which she adhered to without ever wavering, from the nasty speech up until her resignation on 24 May 2019. Finally, to argue that Theresa May led a One Nation government implies that she had the power to impress her vision upon the government itself as well as upon the senior members of the Party in a context that was dominated by Brexit and important divisions within the Conservative Party. This article will contend that, although there are elements in Theresa Mays’ different positions which are consistent with One Nation Conservatism, not all of them are and, perhaps more importantly, even those that are, appear not to remain so over time, in the face of opposition or to have survived the test of government on a day-to-day basis.21 In the end, the question which is always in the background, when discussing One Nation Conservatism, remains valid. Is there enough evidence to support the hypothesis that Theresa May’s use of the prefix One Nation in front of Conservatism was not merely rhetorical, cosmetic, a label to win over one specific electoral group?

• 22 Walsha, ‘One Nation Group and One Nation Conservatism, 1950-2002’, p. 109.
• 23 Ibid., p.108. Interview with the Lord Biffen of Tanat, 4 March 1998.
• 24 Walsha, ‘One Nation Group and One Nation Conservatism, 1950-2002’, p. 109

8In his study of the One Nation Group and of One Nation Conservatism, Robert Walsha observes how One Nation, ‘even in its supposed glory day’, ‘struggled to live up to its reputation’.23 Lord Biffen, one of the most well-known members of the One Nation Group, formed in 1950, even suggested that One Nation ‘in a way has just become a code term for trying to make the party electable’, emphasizing that it is really about ‘mood music […] not political programmes, it’s just being able to give the public rhetoric a bit of lift, a bit of nobility, a bit of history, a bit of sacrifice’. This leads Walsha to conclude that ‘there is a case for arguing that One Nation Tories have always seen themselves as guardians of electability’.24

9If we consider One Nation as a strategy to win elections then as far as Theresa May is concerned, Brexit was at the heart of the matter.

• 25 In all the literature referred to here as well as in the press.
• 26 Here, the term ‘north’ is less a geographical than a political notion because it includes the Midla (...)
• 27 The first-past-the-post electoral systems tends to favour the two main parties and consequently div (...)

10Brexit was read by May and Nick Timothy, who was to become her chief of staff, not only as a vote against the European Union but also as a vote against David Cameron, his government and, arguably, what they represented, namely the private school and university or Oxbridge-educated, urban, cosmopolitan and liberal elite accused of being self-serving and, in the process, had left behind many of the United Kingdom’s less well-to-do citizens. Brexit is therefore, and very often, analysed as the revenge of the left-behind: the provincial, state-school educated, socially less liberal, against immigration, blue-collar, white working class.25 Many of them, not all by any means, given this background, tended to vote Labour Party which was then largely dominant in the north of England and in Wales,26 or, in the Red Wall areas of England and Wales.27 Before the referendum, they could be UKIP supporters, although UKIP aggregated Labour and Conservatives voters alike.

• 28 Theresa May, Speech to launch the leadership campaign 30 June 2016, https://www.conservativehome.co (...)
• 29 I am simply using the same terminology as that which is used by Theresa May who talks about white a (...)

11Post-Brexit, in the speech to launch her leadership campaign, Theresa May’s main objectives can be summarised in three short slogans: ‘Brexit means Brexit’, ‘unite our Party and our country’ and ‘a country that works for everyone’.28 Although she also includes people who are born poor, black people, women, people who suffer from mental health problems and young people as being unjustly treated, May clearly identifies ‘everyone’ as referring to ‘ordinary, working people,’ the very group mentioned above as comprising provincial, state-school educated, socially less liberal, against immigration, blue-collar, white29 working class:

• 31 Ibid.

12These then are ordinary working-class people for whom ‘life is just much harder than many people in politics realise’, who ‘just about manage’.31

• 32 Richard Hayton defines Conservative statecraft as: ‘the means by which the party has won and held o (...)

13The clear identification of the group that was to become the preferential target of Theresa May’s first electoral campaign and for this group to be described as doing less well and yet deserving of the government’s attention, could be read as her attempt to give the bit of lift, nobility and sacrifice that Lord Biffen suggested One Nation was about. May’s government was in readiness to sacrifice its time to bring these people hope. In the same speech, May also explains: ‘make no mistake, the referendum was a vote to leave the European union, but is was also a vote for serious change’. She thus positioned herself, for the second time it seems, as the Conservative who was ready to change the party narrative, hopefully creating a new Conservatism that would endure. This was May’s attempt to respond to the imperatives of Conservative statecraft.32

• 33 Andrew Gamble, ‘The Remaking of Conservatism: Johnson and the Policies of Brexit’ in The Political (...)

14In Theresa May’s speeches, there are indications which point to the fact that she was using Brexit and the political realignment it created to attempt to change the Conservative narrative notably regarding the economy, the role of the state and also regarding the Party’s approach to society. That this new narrative was not new after all is not relevant. Neither was Thatcher’s. In The Remaking of Conservatism: Boris Johnson and the Politics of Brexit,33 Andrew Gamble, again, argues that:

• 35 May’s First speech as PM, 13 July 2016.
• 36 For a discussion by this author on David Cameron’s One Nation Conservatism, the Big Society and aus (...)

15To a certain extent, this is precisely what I argue One Nation Conservatism to be about. This is what it was about when Disraeli gave his Manchester Speech: ‘Gentlemen, The Tory Party, unless it is a national party is nothing’. It was also Harold Macmillan and Richard Austen (Rab) Butler’s One Nation Conservatism, after the economic crash of the 1930s almost immediately followed by the Second World War and the victory of Clement Attlee’s Labour Party. This is what it was about when Theresa May, as the new Prime Minister, in July 2016, affirmed that: ‘The Government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours [...] We will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you’.35 This was, of course, a scathing attack of her predecessor. She used One Nation to realign the Party after Brexit because she believed that Brexit had demonstrated that the majority felt left-behind and wanted different policies from those adopted by Cameron and Osborne and, as can be safely argued, since 1979.36

• 37 Hayton, ‘Conservative Party Statecraft and the Johnson Government’, p. 414.

16When one event crystalises discontent and results in a social backlash, One Nation Conservatism becomes an attempt, and was May’s attempt, to broaden the reach of the Party in order to present it as open to everyone, rather than the party of the elite. The so-called Brexit referendum was such a backlash. Hayton argues that under Boris Johnson, ‘the Conservative Party proved able to reposition themselves successfully to exploit this division [Brexit created a new electoral cleavage] and marshal the coalition of Leave voters into party competition’.37 Obviously, for a host of reasons, some of which will be addressed in the second part of this discussion, May failed where Johnson succeeded. However, Johnson’s success was built on May’s policies and even her vision. The work of repositioning the party was definitely begun by May and Johnson’s 2019 Conservative Party Manifesto was the continuation of May’s policies in her 2017 manifesto. The fact that Johnson also declared himself and his government to be One Nation, shows that he too, was embracing the new Conservative Party narrative, at least for political gain.

• 38 Vernon Bogdanor, ‘2017: The Election of the Trojan Horse’ in The Political Quarterly, Vol. 88, Issu (...)
• 39 May, Theresa, Britain after Brexit. A vision of a Global Britain, Conference speech, 2 October 2016 (...)

18Vernon Bogdanor, in his analysis of the 2017 general election suggests that ‘education rather than class is now the main cleavage in British politics; and above all on the toxic issue of Brexit’.38 Bogdanor is obviously referring to the specific group already identified above. After she became Prime Minister, Theresa May carried on courting this same group, specifying, in speech after speech, who she believed they were and how she believed they felt. One notable moment was her 2016 Conference Speech in which she delivered ‘A vision of a Global Britain’.39 The speech was notable not only because, as she was attempting to remind the corporate elite of their duty to their workers, she described them as the ‘Nowheres’:

• 41 May’s Conference Speech, 5 October 2016.

19She also restated her initial ‘promise’ that the government she was leading would be ‘driven not by the interests of a privileged few, but by the interests of ordinary, working-class families’.41 This was the group that David Goodhart identified as the ‘Somewheres’:

• 44 Jonathan Davis and Andy Hollis, ‘Theresa May’s Brexit speech has shades of Hitler’ in The Guardian, (...)

21May exploited these discrepancies and deliberately chose to tap into the English nationalism of the Somewheres. Although there was a backlash when she did so,44 the fact remains that there was a deliberate attempt to make political use of the divisions revealed by Brexit:

• 46 Benjamin Disraeli’s Manchester and Crystal Palace Speeches of April and June 1872.
• 47 In opposition to the small-state Conservatism of the Neoliberal Conservative tradition embodied by (...)

24It took the Conservative Party 78 years to finally attempt to formally define Disraeli’s One Nation vision.46 One Nation Conservatism had progressively been elevated to the status of political myth, with many granting it more substance than it actually possessed. The 1950 Pamphlet was thus a far cry from the progressive, let alone ‘left-wing’, Toryism which putatively promoted a more equal nation in which a whole people, united by a spirit of solidarity, would be as one. More realistically, the pamphlet reflected the differences between 1950s’ and Disraeli’s Britain. It laid bare divisions even amongst its authors and the One Nation Group that was subsequently formed. Nevertheless, One Nation Conservatism had acquired body and was invested with a certain ethos. Influenced by a certain spirit of Noblesse Oblige conferring the Conservatives with the moral duty to look out for the weaker and less privileged in society, One Nation proponents suggested that it was their responsibility, and that of the government, to promote social harmony for the sake of social peace and in order to preserve the capitalist order which delivered economic growth. From the 1950s on, One Nation Conservatism became increasingly associated with a group of high-profile Conservatives who, from Harold Macmillan to Lord Hailsham, Iain MacLeod and, to a certain extent Edward Heath, contributed to its reputation as supportive of social, welfare, industrial and economic policies conducive to social peace, as somewhat Europhile and as generally favourable to a strong United Kingdom acting as one nation. What this inevitably means is that for One Nation policies to be effective, the government has to step up its role and accept a certain degree of interventionism, including in economic affairs, hence its severest critics’ perception that One Nation relies on a powerful, centralised government,47 much like their nemesis: the socialist state. One Nation Conservatism, however, is not socialism.

• 48 Nick Timothy, Remaking One Nation. The Future of Conservatism (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2020).

25In Remaking One Nation,48 the memoirs he wrote three years after he was forced to leave Theresa May’s team after the 2017 snap election fiasco that saw the Conservative Party lose its majority in Parliament, Nick Timothy writes:

• 50 Seldon, May At 10, p. 87.
• 51 Ibid.
• 52 Ibid., p. 8.

26Seldon says of Theresa May, rather disparagingly, that ‘she had no political philosophy’50 also insisting on the fact that she had no sense of history and was not an intellectual, describing her Conservatism as ‘born from her experience of life’.51 Hers was the story of the only daughter of an Anglo-Catholic vicar (her mother helped in the parish). She received a grammar-school education and then went on to study at Oxford. Her middle-class, distinctly traditional and provincial background distinguished her from most of the other members of the Conservative Party. Seldon describes her as shy, an introvert, who had very few friends apart from her husband Philip whom she met ‘at a disco organised by the Oxford University Association’.52 This may explain why she chose to surround herself with only a very small group of close advisers who were entirely in charge of providing intellectual form and content to her message and policies. Nick Timothy was one of those from the outset and there is no doubt that he was a major influence, giving important intellectual drive to Theresa May’s vision and contributing to the shaping of her policies from the moment she became Home Secretary until his resignation as chief of staff in June 2017. However, between being convinced, with hindsight, that the Conservative Party must be One Nation and proposing policies that are One Nation when in office, there is a yawning gap.

• 53 Seawright, The British Conservative Party and One Nation Politics, p. 175.

28From the birth of One Nation at the end of the 19^th century to the writing of the One Nation pamphlet and the formation of the One Nation Group in 1950 through to Theresa May’s declaring she would lead in the spirit of One Nation, One Nation has been in constant conceptual flux, changing and adapting to the circumstances as well as to various group leaders’ political needs and messages. The divisions, caused by inherently contradictory forces warring with one another within the Conservative ranks and the One Nation Group itself: its interventionist compassionate outlook regarding society and its more liberal small state vision regarding the economy, were at times acute enough, or at least viewed as such, that it has seemed that the only aspect of One Nation that had any permanence was the approach to the union, what Seawright calls: ‘the commitment to the narrative of the union’.53 Admittedly, One Nation Conservatism is never so strong as when the unity of the nation is thought to be endangered.

• 54 May’s Launch Statement, 30 June 2016.

29It would be easy to describe Brexit as the single most important issue of the 2010s, and so it was, without a shadow of doubt. However, two years before the Brexit referendum, there had been another question that would have proved just as crucial for the survival of the multinational United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, had the results been different. The referendum concerning Scottish independence from the United Kingdom was held in September 2014 and although 55.3% voted against independence, many questions had come to the fore. In June 2016, in her statement to launch her leadership campaign, Theresa May insisted on the necessity to choose a leader who could unite the party and the country because what with ‘divisive nationalists in Scotland and Wales’, she affirmed, ‘it is nothing less than the patriotic duty of our Party to unite and govern in the interests of the whole country’.54 Just a few weeks later, the new Prime Minister, after having thanked her predecessor, began her speech with this short reminder:

• 56 The Conservative Party, Forward Together. Our Plan for a Stronger Britain and a Prosperous Future. (...)

30The manifesto for the 2017 General Election, Forward Together, Our Plan for a Stronger Britain and Prosperous Future,56 also reasserts the need for:

• 58 Ibid., p. 30.
• 59 May’s First Speech as PM, 13 July 2016.

31This entailed delivering a ‘strong and stable Union, with no divisive Scottish referendum at this time’.58 The appeal to the spirit of four nations as one is very apparent in Theresa May’s rhetoric and contributes to her description of her government as strongly committed to national unity. It could be argued that unionism has indeed been part of the Conservative identity since the Party became the Conservative and Unionist Party in 1886. However, when the unity of the nation is perceived to be in danger, One Nation rises to the challenge. The cumulative effects of the two referendums was one such disruptive moment which warranted utilising the One Nation strategy. There was one problem with this appeal for unity of the United Kingdom, however, which was that the Conservative Party had for a long time been perceived as little more than a southern English party, with no significant representation in many parts of Northern England, of the Midlands, in Wales, in Northern Ireland, not to mention in Scotland where it was quasi non-existent. Therefore, to make the strategy effective, Theresa May had to broaden the contours so that it was not limited to upholding the constitution of the United Kingdom and its institutions. She was required to appeal to the citizens of the four nations and of all their regions big and small: ‘we believe in the union not just between the nations of the United Kingdom but between all our citizens, everyone of us, whoever we are and wherever we’re from’.59 May’s ‘everyone’ included, importantly, the residents of the regions of England which were generally described as the Red Wall.

• 60 May’s Speech to launch her leadership campaign, 11 July 2016.
• 61 A leitmotiv repeated over and over again in every one of May’s speeches from 2016 onwards.
• 62 The 2017 Manifesto, p.7.
• 63 Benjamin Disraeli quoted in David Seawright, The British Conservative Party and One Nation Politics(...)

32As argued above, Theresa May and her team had understood Brexit as the revenge of the left behind or ‘Somewheres’. Interestingly, they feature prominently in May’s repeated attempt to present her Conservative Party as ‘not the party of the privileged few’, but of ‘everyone of us’,60 and to present her Britain as ‘a country that works for everyone’.61 They were the blue-collar workers, the working-class people whose vote, since the scores attained by UKIP and confirmed by Brexit, the Conservative Party had been trying to court. They were the ‘just about managing’ people that May wanted to build her ‘Great meritocracy for’, to make sure that everyone who is deserving ‘has the opportunity to make the most of their talents and hard work, whoever [they] are and wherever [they] are’.62 This attempt to broaden the appeal of the Conservative Party is in line with Benjamin Disraeli’s contention that: ‘it is a party formed of all the numerous classes in the realm – classes alike and equal before the law, but whose different conditions and different aims give vigour and variety to our national life.63

• 64 Seldon, May At 10, p. 99.
• 65 Ibid.

35Shortly after David Cameron had announced that a referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union was to take place on 23 June 2016, Theresa May, as a member of his government, had to take sides. At first, it looked as if she would embrace the One Nation tradition. She publicly announced that she would support Remain in spite of her inner circle being convinced that this was a mistake considering the possibility of her leadership bid in 2020. Why did May take up this option, which they all calculated ‘would hurt her’?64 Seldon describes May as having ‘very little understanding of the European Union’,65 of its institutions and of its functioning. It may be the case that she did not really have a definite opinion, however, most of those who worked closely with her thought that she was instinctively a Leaver because of her positions on sovereignty and immigration despite her also being afraid that Brexit would harm her country and its people. Once the results of the referendum were in and she launched her bid for the leadership of the party, she became increasingly more radical in every speech she made from her ‘Brexit means Brexit’ on 30 June 2016 to the Lancaster House Speech on 17 January 2017. It may be safely assumed that Nick Timothy was behind this change of mind. He was a staunch Leaver, her chief of staff and head of her strategy team of two, with Fiona Hill.

• 66 Seawright, The British Conservative Party and One Nation Politics, chapter 7, pp. 141-161.
• 67 May’s Conference Speech, 5 October 2016.

36Membership of the European Union had divided the Conservative Party for over three decades. It was also a point of contention within the One Nation Group.66 Furthermore, the ‘small’ Europe of the 1970s and of which the One Nation Conservatives had been a part no longer existed. In 2016, Europe was bigger in size, with the successive enlargements, and more far-reaching in terms of the powers it wielded. The fact remains that in spite of ever-growing Euroscepticism within the party ranks and amongst the grassroots, the most high-profile One Nation Conservatives, including David Cameron, had supported Europe. May’s decision to advocate for Britain to leave both the single market and the customs union before the negotiations had even started is not consistent with the claim that her government would lead in a One Nation spirit, whether the decision was coloured by the necessity to ward off internal threats or not. Her concessions to the hard Brexit wing of the party and, to the DUP as of June 2017, alienated the proponents of Remain who were One Nation Conservatives. This position would prove fatal, and the damage done by such a decision could not be remedied by her declarations about the ‘good that the government can do’ and her claim that she wanted to ‘set [the] party and [the] country on the path towards the new centre ground of British politics’.67

• 68 Seawright, The British Conservative Party and One Nation Politics, p. 7.
• 69 Dorey and Garnett, « ‘The weaker-willed, the craven-hearted’: the decline of One Nation Conservatis (...)

37David Seawright, retracing the history of One Nation Conservatism from Disraeli to Cameron, claims that the most economically interventionist One Nation Conservatism was that of the late 1930s and of the 1940s.68 Peter Dorey considers this as the consequence of the party being led by a whole generation of Conservatives who, in spite of being themselves members of the Establishment (upper class, public schools and Oxbridge), had fought in the trenches during World War I, had endured the 1929 financial crash and felt its concomitant effects (mass unemployment, inflation, etc.). They had been caught up in World War II. They had shared their lives with humble-born fellow citizens.69 Lord Hailsham (Quintin Hogg) was one such figure. In his One Year’s Work published in 1944, he declared:

• 71 Seawright, The British Conservative Party and One Nation Politics, p. 5.

38The landslide victory of the Labour government led by Clement Attlee against the ‘Lion of Britain’ and hero of the Second World War, Winston Churchill, was evidence enough that people wanted change. Elected with a vast programme of social and economic reforms, the Labour Party saw through most of its promises. Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George’s Liberal Governments, in the first two decades of the twentieth century, had initiated the Welfare State which, under Labour, grew and developed dramatically, to become the British Welfare State from 1948 onwards. Attlee’s Chancellors of the Exchequer, notably Hugh Gaitskell, implemented economic policies to support the government’s social objectives and to further them with a pledge to ensure full employment. Both for humanist and tactical considerations, the Conservative Party led by One Nation figures such as Harold Macmillan adhered to many of these policies all the more easily as they were coherent with the One Nation ethos. However, many in the Conservative Party believed that these goals were too collectivist, flirting dangerously with Socialism. The One Nation Pamphlet of 1950 reflected these beliefs. The pamphlet was indeed far more neoliberal than Lord Hailsham’s position above would have led anyone to expect. With every ensuing publication, the One Nation Group edged closer to neoliberalism (Hickson’s ‘Soft One Nation’). Admittedly, even Disraeli’s pledge to ‘elevate’ the ‘condition of the multitude’ did not involve ‘violating those principles of economic truth upon which the prosperity of States depends.’71 In any event, from the publication of the pamphlet onwards, as the Party and its membership renewed itself, the One Nation Group became progressively more free market so that Margaret Thatcher’s economic ideology was not far from being the climax of a decade-long shift of the whole of the Conservative Party to the right. Was Theresa May going to reverse this right-wing trend?

• 72 May’s Launch Statement, 30 June 2016.
• 73 May’s Speech to launch her leadership campaign, 11 July 2016.

39May’s speeches tend to revolve around two topics: Brexit and her explanation of which citizens she values and wants her government to favour. Apart from a very general: ‘an economy that works for everyone’, there are few indications as to what direction she intends to take the economy. Her first announcements as she launched her leadership campaign were more enumerations of Cameron’s successes than a declaration of prime-ministerial intent. She pledged to carry on with reducing ‘public spending and cut the budget deficit’, in short, to proceed with her predecessor’s austerity policy. If given the choice between ‘spending cuts, more borrowing and tax rises’, she concludes that the latter option is the one which must be avoided at all costs.72 Just a few weeks later, she elaborated further on the issue, though only really describing how some, the ‘Just About Managing’, have been so completely left behind by both the government and the world of business: ‘Yet so many of our political and business leaders have responded by showing that they still don’t get it’.73 Her 2016 first conference speech as PM also lacks substance. Again, May paints a bleak picture of the Britain that voted for Brexit:

• 75 The 2017 manifesto, p.16.

40Her crusade in favour of the less privileged against the ‘rich, the successful and the powerful’, is not accompanied with concrete measures to remedy the problem. The manifesto’s pledge to protect workers is a brief: ‘We will make sure that people working in the ‘gig’ economy are properly protected’75 with no explanation as to how this will happen. Though this might be expected from someone launching an uncertain bid to the leadership of the party, it is rather more surprising when the PM resorts to such tactics.

• 76 Seldon, May At 10, p. 174.

41Seldon is insistent on how Theresa May was isolated from her cabinet and party in general, preferring to work exclusively with her small group of close advisors. He also describes her very poor relationship with most of her cabinet and paints a damning picture of her ‘absolutely ghastly’76 dealings with her Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is evidence to support this claim and more. Philip Hammond was a strong proponent of tight fiscal discipline, and his vison of the economy was certainly more in line with that of his predecessor, George Osborne, than in favour of the change that May was calling for, as demonstrated by the 2016 autumn statement. Nick Timothy and Ben Gummer’s 2017 Manifesto attests to the government’s decision to continue with austerity with its insistence on sound public finances and fiscal discipline, possibly a sign that the PM had given in to her Chancellor:

• 78 Ibid., p. 18.

42The pledge to keep taxes as low as possible is also in line with the policies of all neoliberal Conservative Governments since 1979. The commitment to building ‘an economy that invests for the long term and supports growth across the whole country – not just in those places that have done well in the past few decades but also where prosperity has waned’,78 is coherent with May’s many calls for national unity, and therefore, the government’s response to the call of the left-behind regions which voted for Brexit. However, there is here very little difference between this and George Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse, one of the flagship policies of the Cameron government formed in 2015 and May is unclear on the means to the end. The real novelty of the 2017 Manifesto might be the so-called ‘modern industrial strategy’ which, besides promising investments where there was none, is very vague as it is tied to the results of the negotiations with Europe. The only aspect of the government’s economic plan, which marks it as possibly One Nation, is the commitment to introducing ‘effective regulation’ to protect workers, in line with Lord Hailsham’s view. However, the paragraph explaining what the government aims to do is rather obscure as it specifies that regulation is necessary but too much regulation is counterproductive and therefore, the solution is to continue as before:

• 79 Seldon, May At 10, p. 210.
• 80 Ibid., p. 174.

44The Manifesto was not well received by the Party. It was dismissed by Lynton Crosby, whose team was chosen to lead May’s campaign for the 2017 election, as ‘bullshit’,79 discarded by Philip Hammond as just an example of Nick Timothy’s ‘wacky ideas’,80 and derided by experts and the Labour opposition for not being costed. We are left with a difficult question. On the face of it, at least economically speaking, there is not much in the 2017 Manifesto that appears as particularly One Nation, besides the emphasis on ‘the good that the government can do’ and the assumption that the government is not the problem and that intervention might be justified. However, the all-consuming Brexit question, combined with the fact that May lost her majority and her team in the election, means that, whatever strategy she had envisaged, was never implemented. In theory, and in due course, May might have taken the Conservative Party in a different direction. In practice, she did not, and her economic perspectives were not, strictly speaking, particularly coherent with the One Nation of the 1940s, though perhaps more so with its later version. There remains one final and fundamental aspect to consider in order to assess whether May’s government was One Nation, and that is its view on society.

• 81 From Vindication of the English Constitution in a Letter to a Noble and Learned Lord (London, 1835)

45In any discussion about One Nation Conservatism, it is indeed important not to overly invest the phrase One Nation at the expense of the term which it qualifies, namely Conservatism. Social justice for the Conservatives, that is at least for those who accept that the concept exists, is not defined in the same terms as it may be defined by Socialists, for example. The same applies to understandings of equality. In 1835, Disraeli affirmed that: ‘The basis of English society is Equality. But here let us distinguish: there are two kinds of equality; there is the equality that levels and destroys, and the equality that elevates and creates...’.81 In 2010, Theresa May had this to say about equality:

• 83 May’s Speech to launch her leadership campaign, op. cit., 11 July 2016.
• 84 May’s First speech as PM, 13 July 2016.
• 85 May’s Speech to launch her leadership campaign, op. cit., 11 July 2016.
• 86 Douglas Hurd, Tamworth Speech, March 1988, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n06/douglas-hurd/dou (...)

46In 2016, she reiterated her position: ‘In the name of equality, Labour end up holding people back – but we believe in setting people free to go as far as their talent will take them’.83 However, social justice and equality are still principles that most Conservatives have committed to across the ages, albeit in a form that was adapted to the historical context. Social justice is about equal opportunities before the law and, at best, the most socially concerned Conservatives will be favourable to the introduction of a minimum standard above which people should be free to rise as far as their talent and hard work allows them to do so or, to quote May: ‘we will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you’,84 a vision that is epitomised by her concept of ‘Great Meritocracy’. To this end, socially concerned Conservatives usually focus on two priorities: education and housing. May, in her speech to launch her leadership bid thus continued: ‘That is why school reform is such a passion for so many Conservatives [...] it is also why housing matters so much’.85 Such commitments do not obviously make Conservatives more One Nation. However, all One Nation Conservatives have upheld such a vision. Another recurring Conservative theme is the role played by the community, or, depending on the messenger, civil society, in taking up the duty of care. May’s Shared Society speech, delivered at the Charity Commission’s annual meeting on 9 January 2017, is a typical example of how Conservatives trust civic activism and civil society in delivering welfare, rather than the government. The speech was written by Will Tanner and, apart from one particular perspective, it is in line with Conservative thinking from Burke’s Little Platoons to Salisbury’s call for civic activism which was replicated by Douglas Hurd’s concept of active citizenship86 and Cameron’s Big Society.

• 87 Theresa May, The Shared Society Speech: Prime Minister’s Speech at the Charity Commission annual me (...)
• 88 May’s Shared Society Speech, 9 January 2017.
• 89 Ibid.
• 90 Ibid.
• 91 Ibid.

47The strongly communitarian vision expounded in the Shared Society speech stresses the importance of the role played by civil society in general, and charities in particular, in building a strong community: ‘We are a country built on the bonds of family, community and citizenship and there is no greater example of the strength of those bonds than our great movement of charities and social enterprises’.87 This is followed by an enumeration of what the Prime Minister describes as ‘the burning injustices that undermine the solidarity of our society and stunt our capacity to build the stronger, fairer country that we want Britain to be’.88 Amongst them, poverty, racism sexism. However important, these are not the burning injustices May is concerned with because they already ‘receive a lot of attention’.89 Instead, the focus is on ordinary working-class families whose concerns have ‘fallen on deaf ears’, whether at home (the liberal elites that have lead them and systematically ‘shut down their views’) or abroad (the European Union which makes decision that do not always seem to be ‘the right decisions for them’).90 These people ‘have been ignored by government for too long because they don’t fall into the income bracket that makes them qualify for welfare support’ and yet they ‘are by no means rich or well off’. They are the people a duty-bound government should step up to help because the burning injustices they suffer destroy the fabric of society and, it follows, social harmony. The solution is to ‘recalibrate how we approach policy development’, meaning that the government has to distance itself from ‘the laissez-faire liberalism that leaves people to get by on their own’.91 This latter approach is said to have destroyed the social bonds between communities, families and people working together, replacing these with individualism and self-interest. This is the continuation of the distancing of the Conservative Party from Thatcherism, a move which was initiated by Cameron following May’s 2002 Nasty Speech. He also claimed that his objective was to reposition the Party to the centre-ground. However, May is also disassociating herself from her predecessor by claiming to govern from the mainstream, and by having a seemingly bolder vision of the role of the government and what good it can do:

• 93 Ibid.

48Nonetheless, what follows is textbook, traditional civic Conservatism with its stress on the social obligations of individual citizens to society rather than their social rights: ‘The shared society is one that doesn’t just value individual rights but focusses rather more on the responsibilities we have to one another’. The government too has a social obligation: ‘to act to encourage and nurture those relationships, networks and institutions where it can,’93 in other words to incentivise or help people help themselves. Although the rhetoric was obviously different, this was also what Thatcher was trying to explain when she said: ‘there is no such thing about society’.

• 94 He was appointed by Ed Miliband to help him define a new Labour vision in the wake of the 2015 gene (...)

49What makes the Shared Society speech remarkable, and indeed, this may be viewed as May’s individual brand of Conservatism, is not her appeal to helping the poor get by, but her sustained appeal to helping those who just about get by: the group that Just About Manage, otherwise known as the JAMs. The objective was to provide them with the opportunity to become part of her Great Meritocracy whatever their background. Whether in the Shared Society speech or in the Manifesto published a few months later, there is next to nothing in May’s social contact about the recipients of means-tested benefits beyond her commitment to continue to roll out universal credit, a policy initiated by Cameron’s coalition government and reputed to have created a lot of hardship for those receiving welfare benefits. What May’s strategy, as well as her clear choice of prime social objective, might reveal is, possibly, a greater proximity with blue-collar Conservatism than with One Nation Conservatism. Maurice Glassman, pioneer of the ‘Blue Labour Project’,94 was invited to Downing Street to discuss May’s strategy with herself and her team, and it is argued that Nick Timothy and Ben Gummer were largely inspired by him, especially given the disruption in the social fabric caused by Brexit. It is obvious that May’s staff was toying with the idea of changing the Conservative narrative, at least to reappropriate the One Nation qualifier, but possibly even more.

• 95 Seawright, The British Conservative Party and One Nation Politics, p. 9.

52Seawright insists that the One Nation Group’s membership has exhibited what he calls: ‘the full range of the Conservative ideological continuum’,95 highlighting that One Nation Conservatism is not easy to pin down. This might explain abundant and often conflicting scholarship on the subject.

• 96 HM Government, Industrial Strategy. Building a Britain fit for the future, OGL, 2017, https://asset (...)
• 97 Seldon, May At 10, p. 181.
• 98 Ibid., p. 315.

53In the foreword of the Industrial Strategy White Paper published in November 2017, May summarised her One Nation approach, explaining that ‘it epitomises my belief in a strong, a strategic state that intervenes decisively whenever it can make a difference’.96 On many occasions, May did not hesitate to declare that, unlike most of her predecessors since 1979, she believed in the ‘good that the government can do’ and that she was prepared to lead an interventionist government. In this light, her claim to adopting a One Nation approach may be accepted. Nevertheless, she was never strong enough (the ‘strong, strategic state’) to see difficult policies through to the end, first because as a take-over Prime Minister, she did not have a strong mandate to alter her predecessor’s manifesto promises. Secondly, when she attempted to obtain this mandate, she failed to do so and found herself in an even weaker position. May’s claim to lead a strong government was also weakened by her personal failure to act as a leader. That she chose to surround herself with a very small group of very close advisors who made all the decisions on the major issues, often without consulting the cabinet or Whitehall, alienated the most senior members of her government, starting with Philip Hammond, her Chancellor of the Exchequer. He did not seem to share her One Nation approach and Seldon reports that he hated Nick Timothy, May’s Chief of Staff, the person who was in complete control of May’s One Nation narrative and, obviously, of the government’s agenda. Hammond’s autumn statements were a constant rebuff and they inevitably limited her capacity to lead a One Nation government. Furthermore, Seldon claims that although May could be quite passionate about ideas, she was also quite hesitant when it came to putting words into deeds.97 This means that when faced with opposition from her Cabinet, she would easily back down, although her failure to consult them in the first place might have indicated a certain lack of respect. Seldon refers to her focus on mental health issues as evidence that, rather than working on reforming already existing policies, she was better at working in areas that were relatively unexplored, or regarding which there was very little in place. What this may show is that May was not in control, whether of her own narrative or of the government. Her reliance on Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill evidently damaged her ability to reach out to her party, which nurtured their inability to respect her. They took their revenge after the election fiasco. Timothy’s manifesto was all but abandoned. The industrial strategy was watered down. On 27 June 2017, May’s First Queen’s Speech after the election was no longer about burning injustices and the good that the government can do. Seldon argues that ‘everything that was of any substance in Timothy’s agenda was cut’.98 The only part of May’s agenda that survived was her Brexit strategy. Had May held strong One Nation beliefs, would she not have fought back?

• 99 https://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/wmatrix/ukmanifestos2017/localpdf/Conservatives.pdf, p. 13
• 100 Ibid., p. 14
• 101 Ibid.

54Another problem in Theresa May’s claim to lead in the One Nation spirit, is that she often proceeded by means of reiterating catchy slogans and declarations, some of which were indeed coherent with the One Nation narrative. However, due to a lack of time, because of the all-consuming issue of Brexit or of the brevity of her time in office (as opposed to take-over PM), her political agenda was propped up by simple declarations of intent. This is exemplified by the 2017 manifesto which presented perspectives, but only general policies and no estimation of the cost. Her agenda also lacked coherence although, arguably, this merely revealed the tensions that are palpable in today’s Conservative Party. Most of them result from the economic conundrum: the choice between a neoliberal free market approach and a more interventionist or One Nation strategy. The intractable problem being that you cannot have both at the same time. And yet, it seems that the Manifesto is a continued attempt to square the circle: free market and government intervention; free market and regulations to ‘enhance workers’ rights and protection’; the necessity to ‘work on deficit reduction’,99 to keep ‘taxes as low as possible’100 and ‘the most ambitious programme of investment in people, technology and buildings the NHS has ever seen; record – and fair – funding for schools; and the first ever plan to pay for – and provide – social care’,101 to name but a few examples. Furthermore, this time round, there seemed to be other irreconcilable divides.

• 102 Ibid. p. 7.
• 103 Matthew Goodwin and Oliver Heath, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/brexit-and-the-left-beh (...)

55The tough line on immigration, and Brexit, both associated with the right-wing of the Party, clashed with the view that One Nation Conservatism is a more compassionate and left-wing version of Conservatism. Most of the credit attributed to the validity of May’s proposition to lead in a One Nation spirit rests on the now most famous: ‘We must reject the ideological templates provided by the socialist left and the libertarian right and instead embrace the mainstream view that recognises the good that government can do’.102 This is however followed by the Manifesto in which: ‘rather than pursue an agenda based on a supposed centre ground defined and established by elites in Westminster, we will govern in the interests of the mainstream of the British public’. Is this One Nation or ‘for the mainstream’ Conservatism? It is now obvious that these are dissimilar. In her bid to exploit the results of the referendum to her electoral advantage by appealing to the blue-collar workers, the white working-class, the ‘somewheres’, who had supposedly voted en masse in favour of leaving the EU, May alienated the younger, urban, educated, middle-class voters103 who, for some, formed the mainstream of the party and may have been, in fact, the One Nation Conservatives. She also flirted dangerously with right-wing and populist ideas. A close examination of Nick Timothy’s Remaking One Nation reveals that he was not so attune with One Nation Conservatism as all that in terms of his nostalgia about the decline of the white working class, his negative views on so-called mass immigration, multiculturalism and positive action, his anti-liberal elite rather populist views and penchant for the reactivating of the culture war, and his staunch condemnation of the European Union’s project and of Britain’s liberal democracy.