Boris Johnson and ‘Let’s keep Brexit done’: the impact of Conservative Party management on the UK’s policy on Europe

The United Kingdom’s relationship to Europe has been controversial within the Conservative Party long before the 2016 referendum on EU membership. Far from settling the question, the party continued to divide itself despite the victory of the Brexit campaign and even forced David Cameron and later Theresa May to resign over the issue. Many within the party warned like Boris Johnson that these divisions could cause its “potential extinction” (Johnson, 2019). After his election as Conservative Party Leader in July 2019, Johnson rejected the appeasement strategy adopted by his predecessors and instead sided with the pro-Brexit faction imposing a more hardline policy on Europe. He appointed a Cabinet of Brexit loyalists, adopted a hard Brexit stance in new negotiations with the EU, briefed against more pro-European Conservative MPs and removed the whip of 21 MPs that voted against his parliamentary Brexit agenda. Even if this strategy resulted in the loss of the government’s working majority and was internally opposed by some, Johnson actively used the policy on Europe to exclude discordant voices and fully take control of the Conservative Party. This specific style of party management proved central in securing a landslide victory at the 2019 General Election with a large electorate voting for pro-Brexit Conservative candidates and for a hard Brexit manifesto. Johnson’s grip over his party was particularly striking compared to the Labour Party that was much more divided on Brexit and lost several historic constituencies to the Conservatives. The new parliamentary Conservative Party confirmed Johnson’s control over the party by voting for his Brexit deal within days of the election, letting him freely negotiate during the transition period and finally voting for the post-Brexit trade deal that officially completed the UK’s EU exit on 31 December 2020. Even if Johnson eventually had to resign in July 2022 after a criticised Covid-19 pandemic management and a series of political scandals, his Premiership nevertheless was crucial in reversing decades of Conservative divisions on the policy on Europe. Through radical party management, Johnson united his party around a hard Brexit that proved crucial in asserting his leadership, controlling government, winning the 2019 General Election and completing Brexit. This paper will look at the use by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the policy on Europe as a party management tool. James Bulpitt’s statecraft theory will constitute the theoretical framework to analyse party management together with a wider literature on political parties and the British Conservative Party. Wide-ranging datasets involving statistics, speeches and first-hand interviews will form the basis of the methodological framework. The conclusions of this paper will show the remodelling of the Conservative Party through Johnson’s party management based on a hard Brexit. As such, this paper will shed light on the intrinsic evolution of the Conservative Party within British politics as well as on the pivotal use of a political crisis like Brexit as an instrument to transform a political party.