In the animal kingdom, creatures that cannot adapt to a changing landscape die. The same is true of political parties, and the British Conservative Party — the oldest and most successful in the world — is the best example of that principle in action. Its definition of conservatism has been changing, modestly, with each election and every new leader; continually evolving alongside the country it hopes to lead. The post-referendum era in British politics is no different, although it appears as if we’ve stopped taking notice.

Party leaders have always been a product — and a producer — of change; the exact ratio depending on the person and the time. When he took the reins of the Conservative Party in 2005, David Cameron integrated social liberalism and a soft-environmentalism into its brand in an attempt to avoid a catastrophic fourth election defeat. It worked, and five years later the party ended its 13-year hiatus from government.

In 2013, Cameron passed gay marriage legislation in partnership with the Liberal Democrats, his former coalition partners. He and his “moderniser” allies were younger, more socially liberal, and willing to take an axe to some of the party’s sacred cows. Cameron famously declared the party should stop “banging on about Europe” — a sentence that would have been heresy to the grassroots a decade before. The demise of two Conservative prime ministers by the issue and three consecutive election losses had sharpened minds, however, and Cameron was given brief vacation from the issue. Euroskepticism couldn’t be contained forever though, and in 2013 he announced plans for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, in an attempt to settle the matter once and for all. We all know how that ended.

A Different Kind of Conservatism?

Theresa May, our current ailing Prime Minister, succeeded him after announcing policies that would make most Democrats blush. For example, workers on company boards and mandatory publishing of the ratio between the CEO’s pay and the average worker’s pay were included in her first speech of the campaign. The vision was different and clear; mine is a “different kind of conservatism” that “marks a break with the past.” This, the only speech she made in the contest, didn’t matter. The race imploded as other leading contenders fought and faux-pa’d their way out of the competition. As the debris settled, May walked out as the obvious, safe pair of hands to lead the country (and the party) through the fog of Brexit. A task she has struggled with since.

The intellectual vinegar that British conservatism is pickled in has long advocated for a drastically smaller role for the state, and with mixed results. Under May, however, free-market think tanks like The Institute of Economic Affairs, The Taxpayers Alliance, and The Adam Smith Society have been left out in the cold like never before. The last few years have seen them aggressively head-scratching at the sight of a Conservative PM implementing and proposing policies touted by the previous Labour leader. Some of her cabinet have even been bold enough to point this out.

But one of the most striking things about May’s premiership is how little she has managed to leave her imprint on the Conservative Party itself. Very few, if any, Conservative MPs would identify themselves as Mayite. Cast your eye over the Tory grassroots and her social democratic instincts are almost nowhere to be seen. Unlike Cameron before her, she has failed to leave her mark. She will pass over those she leads like a shadow.

This is most obvious, and salient, when you look at those likeliest to swoop in and take over from the floundering Mrs May. All of the likely front-runners are to the right of her on the economy, and those that are unlikely to make it far (but run for a space in the cabinet) are — on average — even more so. Leading party “moderates” and those most likely to continue something akin to May’s kind of conservatism are out of the running or non-prospects. One is the head of the party in a completely different legislature, another is sitting on a precarious electoral majority of only 346. The Prime Minister’s most likely successors don’t see Brexit as a distraction, like May, but as an opportunity to implement their free trade, low lax, small state agenda. A Singapore in the North Atlantic. A model that is increasingly in favor among Tory MPs — just not Singapore’s Prime Minister.

One of the favorites — and who I’d put my money on — is our current Home Secretary Sajid Javid, a former managing director at Deutsche Bank and a man semi-notorious for being a big fan of the well known anti-statist, Ayn Rand. In an odd twice-yearly ritual, Javid reads the courtroom scene from the book The Fountainhead to himself. Famously, he once read the passage to his girlfriend (now wife) while at university. For some reason beyond my imagination, he apparently hasn’t done it since.

One of Theresa May’s greatest worries comes from former foreign secretary, and staunch free marketeer, Boris Johnson. Ever since he spearheaded a successful 2012 Olympic Games as Mayor of London, friends and enemies have eyed the throne, knowing that, at some point, the famously ambitious Johnson will attempt to sit on it. If it weren’t for the aforementioned infighting that brought May to power, he might already be our Prime Minister.

Libertarian beliefs are overrepresented among the newer and younger intake of Tory MPs, too — a development that heralds a more permanent change in the DNA of the British Conservatives. FREER, a campaign group advocating “free enterprise and social freedom” with links to the party, is a perfect example of how issues like freedom of speech, blockchains, and the gig economy have become the pet issues of this new cohort.

The next generation of Tory activists looks likely to build on this trend. Young, conservative circles on websites like Twitter are dominated by (what you might call) patriotic libertarians. They are also much more diverse, with noticeably more ethnic minority and LGBT members than Tory stereotypes would suggest. These students and twenty-somethings see no contradiction in supporting trans rights and relaxed drug laws alongside lower taxes and less regulation. Being conservatives, many are Christians, but most are secular and imagine a much-diminished role for religion in the British state. For them, freedom and liberty are the only games in town.

British and American Conservatism are Diverging

This libertarian turn is an odd development considering that for decades conservatism in the United States and the UK has been in near-lockstep. Reagan and Thatcher’s common views on foreign and domestic politics have become iconic; they were followed by Bush Senior and John Major, both quieter, less ideological gentlemen who were beaten by young, progressive and charismatic children of the sixties in Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

The next leader of the British Conservative Party will most likely be far removed from Trump’s brand of right-wing politics, which is noticeably less keen on free trade and far more socially conservative. What is not clear is whether or not this slavish devotion to Trumpism from congressional Republicans is an electoral convenience or a sign of a sincere (and permanent) change to the party’s philosophy. What is noticeable is that British conservatives are spending far less time talking up American conservatism as a model to emulate. Trumpism simply doesn’t sell across the pond.

This generational change in the philosophy of the Conservative Party has gone largely unnoticed, and understandably so. Britain’s departure from the EU has gobbled up the political bandwidth and left little space for tracking other developments. On the opposite benches, Labour’s leadership transformation in recent years from a mainstream social democratic politics into a Maduro-sympathizing, anti-Semitic radical socialist one has been far more profound and dramatic (and if you’re into a little schadenfreude: entertaining, too).

One thing is for certain, if this libertarian tendency completes its takeover of the Conservative Party at the next leadership election, heads will definitely turn.