Who are the ‘five families’ of the Tory party in Westminster?
Infighting in the Conservative Party is worse than ever, but who is in which faction? Sean O’Grady has a spotters’ guide to the Tory tribes
Squabbling over the Rwanda bill has once again highlighted the remarkable number of factions within the parliamentary Conservative Party. Some in Westminster refer to the major groups as the “five families” of the party, though the number of sub-groups has mushroomed, particularly on the hard right. The most high profile in recent years has been the European Research Group, chaired by Mark Francois, which made menacing demands of Rishi Sunak about his proposed legislation, albeit they were pretty much ignored. All have one thing in common: a taste for plotting and intrigue amounting to addiction.
If the Conservatives go into opposition, these disputatious parties-within-a-party will become even more fractious; they are both symptom and cause of the splits that have so disfigured the Conservatives. Tory groups used to be dining clubs of like-minded chums (such as the “Blue Chips” in the 1980s – John Major and Chris Patten) or earnest researchers, such as the Bow Group or the Centre for Policy Studies. Nowadays, the politics are much more raw.
Here is a partial field guide to the different species of Tory MP...
European Research Group
Probably the best-known of the larger right-wing groups, the ERG has long been the core group representing the harder Eurosceptics; while its members are usually identikit Thatcherites, the focus is very much on Europe. The ERG can trace its origins back to the battles over the Maastricht Treaty in the 1990s, and for three decades it has proved itself a nuisance to leaders from Major to Sunak.
The ERG benefited from the steadily more Eurosceptic complexion of the parliamentary party, as new MPs brought up under the influence of Margaret Thatcher replaced politicians from an older pro-EU tradition as they retired.
Financially, the group also took advantage of new rules created after the parliamentary expenses scandal in 2009. These meant that individual MPs could divert all or part of their research and office allowances into “pooled services” for a given group. Thus the ERG, and others, were effectively mini political parties funded by the taxpayer.
In due course, membership of the ERG proved to be no barrier to promotion, indeed quite the opposite; there were nine in Liz Truss’ cabinet. Prominent members include Suella Braverman (a former chair), Michael Gove, David Davis, Steve Baker (another ex-chair), Jacob Rees-Mogg, Chris Heaton-Harris, James Cleverly and Penny Mordaunt.
The peak of its power was during the quest for Brexit from 2016 to 2020, when it effectively held Theresa May’s administration hostage, ended her leadership and secured the hard Brexit we enjoy today. The ERG even has its own whips. More recently, in the leadership elections in 2022, over the Windsor Framework and now on the Rwanda Bill, it has barked but failed to bite. Brexit having been “done”, it’s fair to say the ERG is necessarily less relevant than it was, and the membership is down from around 35 at the time of the Brexit battles to perhaps a dozen now (no formal membership list is published).
Common Sense Group
This is another of the so-called five families. While predictably Eurosceptic, it is much more focused on culture wars, battling “cultural Marxism” as it rails at “woke” attitudes. It thus fights for social conservatism on a wider front than the ERG and takes the arguments to the BBC, National Trust and social media giants. Immigration is an issue that gets them even more excited than Europe. The splenetic Edward Leigh leads this bunch; other personalities include John Hayes, Lee Anderson, Danny Kruger, Jonathan Gullis, Nick Fletcher and Ben Bradley.
Northern Research Group
As the name suggests, this is a pressure group preoccupied with the fortunes of the formerly safe Labour red-wall seats captured by the Tories in 2019. It’s the most transparent of the lot, with its own website and published list of members. The NRG was most influential during Boris Johnson’s time as leader, and NRG member Jake Berry, MP for Rossendale and Darwen, was appointed party chair. Since the levelling-up agenda faded away, dimming prospects for hanging on to the red wall, the NRG’s influence has also waned. The cancellation of the high-speed HS2 link from Birmingham to Manchester by Sunak was a bigger disappointment; the Northern Powerhouse now feels low-energy, politically and industrially. The group of about 10 MPs is chaired by John Stevenson, member for Carlisle.
Conservative Growth Group
The most recent of the five families to be formed, the Growth Group might be best understood as the “Continuity Truss” wing of the party. The formal emphasis is on economics, and pushing for tax cuts, cutting benefits spending, and deregulation to get the economy moving, with a Eurosceptic and libertarian flavour to its pronouncements. Its focus is chiefly economic: it advocates the libertarian policies it believes Ms Truss was prevented from introducing by the unravelling of her mini-Budget in September-October 2022. Informally, the Growth groupies is an organisation dedicated to the rehabilitation of Truss. The unofficial leader is Simon Clarke, and Priti Patel is the most prominent figure (though she is no personal fan of Truss and has ambitions of her own).
New Conservatives
The last of the five families, the New Conservatives are the wackiest and are essentially Trump-style populists. Those most involved, such as Miriam Cates, are keen on producing impressive-seeming research papers dedicated to offbeat ideas such as urging the British to make more babies. The profile is a bit younger than the other groups, but there is a big overlap with the other “families” on the right, and in their words: “We stand for the realignment of British politics: a new era in which Westminster respects the views, values and interests of the British people. In 2019, the country put its trust in the Conservative Party. We need to honour that trust.”
Even with these five groupings within the Conservative party listed above, there also exist other smaller groups, whose members and missions often overlap.
National Conservatives
The “Nat C’s” as they’re sometimes called, held a conference last summer that brought together influential Conservative figures on the hard right. Guest speakers included school headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh, pseudo-intellectuals such as Toby Young and Douglas Murray, and historian David Starkey. It’s vaguely about realignment on the right.
Conservative Democratic Organisation
More or less a “Bring Back Boris” club, this is all about wresting control of the party back from CCHQ and Downing Street and handing the election of the leader and important policy decisions to the grassroots membership. Run by an old ally of Johnson, Lord Cruddas, it has Priti Patel as a high-profile backer.
One Nation Group
What remains of the centre-left of the Tory party. The name is inspired by the thinking of Benjamin Disraeli, who disliked the notion of “two Englands” one rich, one poor, leading separate lives and with no sense of obligation to each other, only to themselves as individuals.
As a grouping, it dates back to a collection of brilliant Tory MPs. including Ted Heath and Iain MacLeod, who formed a club dedicated to modernising the party and keeping it liberal (though another young meteor, Enoch Powell, went off the rails a bit). Today, the One Nation Group is the more socially and economically liberal. In the words of its informal spokesman, Damian Green, it is “committed to the values of the liberal centre-right". Unlike the NRG, the One Nation MPs tend to represent traditionally safe seats in the south of England, the blue wall, where the Liberal Democrats can be a potent threat and where the EU Remain vote was strongest in England, except for London. It is rather smaller than the five families and members also include Gillian Keegan, the security minister Tom Tugendhat, and Caroline Nokes. The appointment of David Cameron as foreign secretary has cheered them up, but that didn’t prevent a spat between Cameron and Tugendhat about China.
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