Can a party that claims the mantle of conservatism be an unconstitutional party? This appears to be a contradiction, even a paradox, yet it is one that Daniel Pitt’s The Conservative Party and the Constitution: Policies, Paradigms, and Silence confronts directly. Originating in Pitt’s PhD research at the University of Hull, the book provides a much-needed analysis of how Britain’s Conservative Party has responded to the profound constitutional changes Britain has experienced, from the Great Reform Act of 1832 to the most recent constitutional innovation introduced by the current Labour government: the abolition of hereditary peers in the House of Lords.

　　Right away, Pitt sets out the current situation, quoting then-Conservative MP Danny Kruger, who argues that Britain is experiencing a constitutional crisis. Later, Pitt describes that crisis:

　　The core problem with the British constitution is that it has undergone a botched surgery, or multiple surgeries. These surgeries have not been a success, as their aims have been contradictory, and thus, this has created tensions within the constitutional framework. However, the main issue with our constitutional discontent is that power has moved away from politicians and towards judges and bureaucrats.

　　For Pitt, Britain has undergone a process of constitutional innovation driven by what I have called constitutional perfectionism, masquerading as “modernisation.” The result has been an increasingly unfamiliar British constitution that is rapidly losing its Westminster characteristics, with predictable constitutional and political consequences that necessitate a conservative response from its principal political vehicle, the Conservative Party.

　　But that response has been sporadic at best. Drawing on Conservative Party manifestos, interviews with Conservative politicians, archival research, and a wide range of primary and secondary sources, Pitt provides a fascinating account of the Conservative Party’s evolving thought and positions on the British constitution and the constitutional issues of the day. In doing so, the book offers a thorough narrative of a party that has tended to think less constitutionally and more in economic, administrative, or policy terms about the constitution. This, Pitt argues, helps explain why the party has been unable to stem, let alone reverse, the tide of constitutional innovation that has transformed Britain.

　　Constitutional Conservatism

　　To analyse how the Conservative Party has approached the constitution from 1900 to 2024, Pitt establishes an interesting framework of analysis. It begins by establishing what he means by constitutional conservatism in substantive terms, through seven principles that can be condensed into two holistic principles. The first is that society should be understood as a “living organism, a living, breathing entity” that is not limited to the present community of souls, but encompasses past and future communities of souls. The constitutional conservative must therefore approach the constitution with care, as they are trustees of this great tradition, born out of the past, preserved in the present, and held in trust for future generations.

　　The second principle is that constitutional conservatism is sceptical of attempts, through reason and abstract principles, to eradicate “the imperfections within human being[s] themselves, but also their institutions, such as constitutions.” The constitutional conservative is therefore sceptical of grand plans born of rationalism, turning instead to history and tradition as more suitable sources of wisdom for addressing political problems that have arisen and may necessitate change. In short, “conservatives have not viewed constitutions as static entities; they have instead seen them as a culmination of knowledge that has been built up over generations of precedents in case law, statute law, and conventions.”

　　These principles of constitutional conservatism provide the foundation for the seven constitutional goods that Pitt identifies as necessary to guide the Conservative Party’s thinking on the constitution: first, preserving and strengthening the Westminster model; second, preserving the dignified elements of the constitution while increasing its efficiency; third, promoting change consistent with the constitution; fourth, maintaining the rule of law; fifth, upholding and strengthening the Union; sixth, preserving the nature of an uncodified constitution; and seventh, defending the bicameral parliamentary system and its checks and balances.

　　Parliament

　　The theoretical detour I have made was necessary because it provides the framework underpinning Pitt’s analysis, which focuses on several constitutional issues. For the purposes of this review, however, I will focus on Parliament and devolved and local government. Regarding Parliament, the modus operandi adopted by the party is that reform is necessary but should be undertaken based on consensus. In the House of Commons, the party has focused on increasing its ability to hold the government to account and improving its effectiveness in scrutinising legislation. Policies have ranged from reducing the size of the House to equalising the electoral size of constituencies and constituency boundaries. Regarding the House of Lords, party policy has been to retain it as the junior chamber while preserving its role within Parliament’s system of checks and balances. Although the party supported and placed on the statute book the Life Peerages Act 1958, it has also, beginning with William Hague’s leadership, supported an elected or partially elected upper house, a proposal later abandoned by Theresa May. In short, the party has sought to preserve Parliament’s bicameral nature and the role of both Houses within the constitution.

　　The Conservative party has lacked the arguments necessary to stem constitutional innovation or repair and restore the constitution.

　　Yet one point discussed by Pitt on which I had hoped for more discussion is the problem of an elective dictatorship. By this, I mean that, because the Commons is the only elected part of Parliament, it therefore holds supremacy over the state. Indeed, this idea has been adopted by all parties, including the Conservative Party. The problem is twofold. First, if we follow that theory to its logical conclusion, then an unelected upper house is incompatible with it. Second, the emergence of mass politics has deteriorated Parliament’s checks and balances, particularly the role of the House of Lords, with no easy means of restoring them. One possible solution may therefore lie in an elected upper house, with the consequences for supremacy and legitimacy that such a reform might entail. The other solution would be to reject the idea of House of Commons sovereignty completely, thereby rejecting the theory underpinning the Great Reform Act of 1832. This would mean restoring the proper role of the unelected parts of the constitution within the system of checks and balances. But this would mean being willing to challenge the primacy of the Commons as the elected chamber and, in the age of mass politics, would certainly not be an election-winning issue.

　　Devolution and Local Government

　　Another issue that Pitt tackles is how Britain is governed outside Parliament, particularly through devolution and local government. On devolution, the party’s position has been sceptical, given its potential effects on the Union. Nevertheless, one of the book’s great strengths is its revelation of early ideas for constitutional reform that predated subsequent innovations. For example, Pitt highlights that, in Churchill’s post-war manifesto and under Anthony Eden, “there was now a plan for devolution that centred on an empirical approach to decision-making and was based on the interests of Scotland within the Union and within the Westminster System,” alongside ideas for administrative devolution in Wales. In Northern Ireland, the party’s focus has been on preserving its place within the Union, while any change in that status must evolve from the consent of the Northern Irish Parliament to the consent of the people.

　　Yet devolution came with New Labour, and Pitt notes that the party’s position evolved from opposition to reluctant acceptance and, ultimately, towards full acceptance, albeit in tension with its commitment to the Union. As Pitt writes, “the party has not had a coherent, constitutionally conservative position on devolution. … It has struggled to adopt a conservative standpoint.” This struggle is also evident in the difficulties surrounding how to address devolution’s effects on England, the largest nation of the United Kingdom, and on Parliament itself.

　　In relation to local government, the issue was approached not as a constitutional matter but as one of efficiency and finance, concerning how best to deliver better outcomes in areas such as health and education at the local level. There was no unanimity within the party over how best to address it. At different times, the party favoured smaller, more local councils and, at others, regional councils, before eventually moving towards a contemporary hybrid approach.

　　The Future: The Conservative Party and the Constitution

　　In light of the theoretical framework Pitt established, his verdict is mixed. On certain topics, Pitt identifies the party adhering to constitutional goods and conservative principles, but in others he finds non-adherence. For example, the brief period of support for an elected upper house constituted non-adherence insofar as it represented a constitutional innovation not in line with conservative principles and constitutional goods, while the commitment to Parliament’s bicameral nature represented adherence to them. In this respect, the party’s position could simultaneously reflect adherence and non-adherence: it preserved the constitutional good of bicameralism while supporting a reform that Pitt regarded as inconsistent with constitutional conservatism. Throughout the book, the reader will find Pitt’s analysis of the party’s adherence or non-adherence to constitutional goods and conservative principles across each constitutional issue and its associated policy positions.

　　However, I would like to conclude this review by highlighting Pitt’s conclusion regarding the party’s approach to the constitution. He writes, “The Conservative Party has dwelt within the paradigm of homo economicus or economic man. … The party has fallen into its modern comfort zone of economics and out of its historical comfort zone of ‘constitutional man.’” In short, rather than addressing constitutional issues through a constitutional lens, the party has mainly approached them through the prism of efficiency, administration, economics, foreign policy, and so forth. The effect, in Pitt’s estimation, and quite rightly, is that the party has lacked the constitutional arguments necessary to stem constitutional innovation or repair and restore the constitution. He therefore concludes that it is “unlikely that the party will solve Britain’s constitutional issues in a sustainable constitutional way in the future unless it prioritises constitutional concerns.”

　　Pitt suggests that there is light at the end of the tunnel with the leadership of Kemi Badenoch, which may lead the party, if it returns to power, to address properly the constitutional issues affecting Britain. How these issues should be addressed, however, is something the book leaves unanswered. Indeed, I have no doubt that the book will serve as a springboard for Pitt to address this question in future work.

　　Nevertheless, Pitt provides an avenue towards the future by pointing to Michael Oakeshott’s view of reform as a guiding principle for repairing the constitution. Certainly, Pitt’s constitutional-conservative scepticism towards schemes aimed at eliminating human imperfections echoes Oakeshott’s conservative disposition. The irony, however, is that Pitt recruits Oakeshott while, in outlining constitutional conservatism, explicitly rejecting Oakeshottian constitutionalism. The difficulty, then, is that Pitt’s constitutional conservatism sits uneasily with Oakeshott’s understanding of constitutionalism and politics, despite his being the very thinker Pitt recruits.

　　Pitt’s view of constitutional conservatism departs from Oakeshott’s constitutionalism because his concern is that Oakeshottian constitutionalism may prove insufficient in light of the innovations that have altered the character of the British constitution. This is a concern that deserves consideration; alas, it is one that I cannot address here. Nevertheless, my first concern is that Pitt’s proposal for a more substantive constitutional conservatism, as a guide to constitutional repair, risks turning constitutional conservatism into an instrumental enterprise directed towards the achievement of predetermined political ends. To put it in Oakeshottian terms, once constitutional repair is guided by substantive principles treated as ends that political action ought deliberately to realise, the conservative seaman risks moving from keeping the ship on an even keel in a boundless and bottomless ocean to abandoning the art of seafaring for the illusion of a final port, with the possibility of shipwreck ever present.

　　This leads to my second concern: recruiting Oakeshott to the task of repair. As Oakeshott remarked, a constitution is “neither more nor less than that which endows law with authenticity.” In this respect, Oakeshott’s conception of the constitution as a set of practices through which a civil association governs itself offers a more restrained account of the politics of repair. Here, the politics of repair is not concerned with repairing the constitution according to substantive principles specifying the ends that constitutional government ought to serve, but with preserving and restoring the non-instrumental conditions of civil association within which individuals can pursue their own felicity and moral identity under the rule of law.

　　In short, Pitt’s substantive constitutional conservatism risks transforming repair from a practical activity of maintaining, restoring and renewing an inherited mode of association into an instrumental project that asks more from politics than Oakeshott would countenance. Therefore, if Oakeshott is to be recruited to the task of constitutional repair, this may require a more restrained conception of constitutional conservatism, one grounded in the civil association and the community it creates through the bond of the rule of law.

　　Despite these concerns, Pitt’s book stands as an excellent work of scholarship that will certainly find an audience among academic and political circles wrestling with how to approach Britain’s constitution, which seems to be moving from one innovation to another. Hopefully, the primary audience Pitt probably had in mind, the Conservative Party, will find in the book important lessons for the future of a constitutional conservatism that preserves, strengthens, renovates, and repairs the institutions and practices that make our countries unique, rich, and full of vitality. I did; I am sure the reader will too.