Party fragments? Intra-Party Dynamics in the Conservative Party after the 2016 Referendum

The victory of Leave in the 2016 Referendum inaugurated a long period of instability within the British Conservative Party. Several intra-party groups, often called factions, emerged with different structures, memberships, objectives, and impacts on the party’s ideological and organisational stability. Using Rose’s theory, this article explores the phenomenon of factionalism and explains why the post-Referendum period contributed to its development. It focuses on six intra-party groups: the European Research Group (ERG), the China Research Group (ChRG), the Common Sense Group (CRG), the Northern Research Group (NRG), the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) and the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG). The article evaluates these groups’ impact on the party’s stability by looking at their characteristics and objectives and argues that despite not impacting its organisational stability, these groups helped shift the party’s ideological focus in a new direction in the post-Brexit context around populism and social conservatism.