High Tory

High Tory

High Toryism is a term used in Britain, Canada and elsewhere to refer to a traditionalist conservatism which is in line with the Toryism originating in the 17th century. High Tories and their worldview are sometimes at odds with the more liberal and cosmopolitan elements of the Conservative Party in these countries at present. Historically, the late eighteenth-century conservatism derived from the Whigs Edmund Burke and William Pitt the Younger marks a watershed from the earlier and "higher" or legitimist Toryism that was allied to Jacobitism.

High Toryism has been described as neo- feudalist in its preference for a hierarchical organisation of society over utopian egalitarianism, as well for holding the traditional gentry as a higher cultural benchmark than the bourgeoisie and those who have attained their position exclusively through commerce. Economically, High Tories tend to prefer a paternalistic corporatism over the neo-liberalism which took ahold in the 1970s.