Liberal Party (UK)

This article is about the former British Liberal Party. For the party formed by the 1988 merger with the SDP, see Liberal Democrats (UK). For the Liberal Party formed by those opposed to the 1988 merger, see Liberal Party (UK, 1989).

Liberal Party
FounderJohn Russell, 1st Earl Russell
Founded9 June 1859; 165 years ago (1859-06-09)
Dissolved2 March 1988; 36 years ago (1988-03-02)
Merger of
Succeeded byLiberal Democrats (majority)
Liberal Party (UK, 1989) (minority)
HeadquartersOffices at the National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London
Youth wingYoung Liberals
IdeologyLiberalism (British)
Free trade
Factions:
Classical liberalism[1]
Gladstonian liberalism
Social liberalism[2]
National affiliationSDP–Liberal Alliance
(1981–1988)
European affiliationFederation of European Liberal Democrats
(1976–1988)
European Parliament group
International affiliation
Northern Irish affiliateUlster Liberal Party (1956–1987)
Colours
  •   Orange (official)
  •   Yellow (customary)
Anthem"The Land"
ConferenceLiberal Assembly
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The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries.[3] Beginning as an alliance of Whigs, free trade–supporting Peelites, and reformist Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century, it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election. Under prime ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–1908) and H. H. Asquith (1908–1916), the Liberal Party passed reforms that created a basic welfare state.[4] Although Asquith was the party leader, its dominant figure was David Lloyd George.

Asquith was overwhelmed by his wartime role as prime minister and Lloyd George led a coalition that replaced him in late 1916. However, Asquith remained as Liberal Party leader. The split between Lloyd George's breakaway faction and Asquith's official Liberal faction badly weakened the party.[5] The coalition government of Lloyd George was increasingly dominated by the Conservative Party, which finally ousted him as prime minister in 1922. The subsequent Liberal collapse was quick and catastrophic. With 400 MPs elected in the 1906 election; they had only 40 in 1924. Their share of the popular vote plunged from 49% to 18%. The Labour Party absorbed most of the ex-Liberal voters and now became the Conservatives' main rival.[6]

By the 1950s, the party had won as few as six seats at general elections. Apart from a few notable by-election victories, its fortunes did not improve significantly until it formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance with the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. At the 1983 general election, the Alliance won over a quarter of the vote, but won only 23 of the 650 seats it contested. At the 1987 general election, its share of the vote fell below 23% and the Liberals and the SDP merged in 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD), who the following year were renamed the Liberal Democrats. A splinter group reconstituted the Liberal Party in 1989.[7]

The Liberals were a coalition with diverse positions on major issues and no unified national policy. This made them repeatedly liable to deep splits, such as that of the Liberal Unionists in 1886 (they eventually joined the Conservative Party); the faction of labour union members that joined the new Labour Party; the split between factions led by Asquith and that led by Lloyd George in 1918–1922; and a three-way split in 1931.[8] Many prominent intellectuals were active in the party, including philosopher John Stuart Mill, economist John Maynard Keynes, and social planner William Beveridge. Winston Churchill during his years as a Liberal (1904–1924) authored Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909).[9]

  1. ^ The Times (31 December 1872), p. 5.
  2. ^ Stephen Driver (2011). Understanding British Party Politics. Polity. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-7456-4077-8. Retrieved 20 July 2013.
  3. ^ Thomas Banchoff; Mitchell Smith (1999). Legitimacy and the European Union: The Contested Polity. Routledge. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-415-18188-4.
  4. ^ Martin Pugh, "Lloyd George, David, 1st Earl Lloyd-George", The Oxford Companion to British History, p. 565, quote: "Lloyd George made a greater impact on British public life than any other 20th-century leader, thanks to his pre-war introduction of Britain's social welfare system (especially medical insurance, unemployment insurance, and old-age pensions, largely paid for by taxes on high incomes and on the land)."
  5. ^ Michael Fry, "Political Change in Britain, August 1914 to December 1916: Lloyd George Replaces Asquith: The Issues Underlying the Drama". Historical Journal (1988) 31#3: 609–627.
  6. ^ Keith Labourn, "The Rise of Labour and the Decline of Liberalism" (1995) p. 207.
  7. ^ D.A. Hamer, Liberal Politics in the Age of Gladstone and Rosebery (1972) pp. 1–27.
  8. ^ Chris Cook, A Short History of the Liberal Party (7th ed. 2010)
  9. ^ William C. Lubenow, Liberal intellectuals and public culture in modern Britain, 1815-1914: making words flesh (Boydell & Brewer, 2010).