This article utilises an original dataset covering all members of the Parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) to analyse the basis of support for Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and Penny Mordaunt in the October 2022 British Conservative Party leadership election. The significance of our findings is that they form the basis for a new understanding of how conservatism in the UK is changing post-Brexit. Our political variables include constituency majority size, red wall status, constituency support for leave, an MP’s position in the June 2022 vote of confidence in Johnson’s leadership of the Conservative Party, ministerial status and rebellion rates on key legislation. Our ideological variables include EU referendum position and membership of the European Research Group and the Conservative Environment Network, along with whether MPs are classed as socially liberal, socially conservative or pro-levelling up. We find that candidates appealed to different, often rival, sections of the Conservative Party. In line with previous studies of this nature, social liberalism still represents a key dividing line within the party, and the European dimension of intra-party conflict has remained significant in light of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

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Theories of policy responsiveness assume that political decision-makers can rationally interpret information about voters’ likely reactions, but can we be sure of this? Political decision-makers face considerable time and information constraints, which are the optimal conditions for displaying decision-making biases—deviations from comprehensive rationality. Recent research has shown that when evaluating policies, political decision-makers display biases related to heuristics—cognitive rules of thumb that facilitate judgments and decision-making—when evaluating policies. It is thus likely that they also rely on heuristics in other situations, such as when forming judgments of voters’ likely reactions. But what types of heuristics do political decision-makers use in such judgments, and do these heuristics contribute to misjudgements of voters’ reactions? Existing research does not answer these crucial questions. To address this lacuna, we first present illustrative evidence of how biases related to heuristics contributed to misjudgements about voters’ reactions in two policy decisions by UK governments. Then, we use this evidence to develop a research agenda that aims to further our understanding of when political decision-makers rely on heuristics and the effects thereof. Such an agenda will contribute to the literature on policy responsiveness.

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