The National Liberal Party, known until 1948 as the Liberal National Party, was a
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
political party in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
from 1931 to 1968. It broke away from the
Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
, and later co-operated and merged with the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
.
History
The Liberal Nationals evolved as a distinctive group within the Liberal Party when the main body of Liberals maintained in office the second
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
government of
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald (; 12 October 18669 November 1937) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 ...
, who lacked a majority in Parliament. A growing number of Liberal MPs led by Sir
John Simon declared their total opposition to this policy and began to co-operate more closely with the Conservative Party, even advocating a policy of replacing free trade with tariffs, anathema to many traditional Liberals. By June 1931 three Liberal MPs — Simon,
Ernest Brown and
Robert Hutchison (a former
Lloyd George ministry
Liberal David Lloyd George formed a coalition government in the United Kingdom in December 1916, and was appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom by King George V. It replaced the earlier wartime coalition under H. H. Asquith, which had ...
-supporting coalitionist of the earlier
National Liberal Party) — resigned their party's whip and sat as independents.
When the Labour Government was replaced by a makeshift, emergency (though to prove long-lasting)
National Government in August 1931, dissident Liberals were temporarily reconciled with the rest of their party within it; but in the next two months the party's acting leader,
Herbert Samuel
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, (6 November 1870 – 5 February 1963) was a British Liberal politician who was the party leader from 1931 to 1935.
He was the first nominally-practising Jew to serve as a Cabinet minister and to beco ...
, came close to resigning from the government over the National Government's proposal to call a snap general election, fearing that it would lead to a majority for the Conservatives and the abolition of free trade. However, he was undermined by the willingness of those Liberals such as Simon – who ''in extremis'' would support
protectionism
Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...
– to continue to support the National Government and even to take the vacant offices to ensure it retained a broad party base. Samuel was welcomed back into the new National Government subject to an agreed concession to fight the general election on a separate Liberal Party manifesto, but staunch supporters of the National Government were prepared to repudiate free trade.
Split of the Liberal Party in 1931
Witnessing the rise of cheap foreign goods, the party split over how they would negotiate over ardent Conservative
protectionism
Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations. ...
: supporters formed the Liberal National Party in the run-up to the
1931 general election in October. A third group under the official leader,
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during t ...
, also emerged, the
Independent Liberals, who opposed the National Government completely, but this had few adherents amongst prominent Liberals beyond Lloyd George's relatives. For the next election in 1935 they reunited with the mainstream Liberals, colloquially dubbed "Samuelites".
Following the 1931 general election, Liberals following John Simon formally repudiated the official Liberal Party in Parliament and operated to all extents and purposes as a separate party group, known as "Simonites", though they were not immediately fully recognised as such. In 1932 the "Samuelite" Liberals resigned from the government over the result of the
Ottawa Conference
The British Empire Economic Conference (also known as the Imperial Economic Conference or Ottawa Conference) was a 1932 conference of British colonies and dominions held to discuss the Great Depression. It was held between 21 July and 20 August ...
– the introduction of a series of tariff agreements – though they continued to support the National Government from the back benches. By 1933 they had abandoned it completely and crossed the floor of the House of Commons, leaving the Liberal Nationals supporting the government. The two groups were now completely separate, though some Liberal MPs like
Robert Bernays
Robert Hamilton Bernays (6 May 1902 – 23 January 1945) was a Liberal Party and later Liberal National politician in the United Kingdom who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1931 to 1945.
Early life
Bernays was the third son and four ...
remained on the Government benches before officially joining the Liberal Nationals, and other MPs maintained links across the floor.
left, Walter Runciman, a key Liberal National but President of the Liberal Party's Federation until 1936
Within the wider party the split was not so clear. Liberal Associations which supported Liberal National candidates remained affiliated to the
National Liberal Federation
The National Liberal Federation (1877–1936) was the union of all English and Welsh (but not Scottish) Liberal Associations. It held an annual conference which was regarded as being representative of the opinion of the party's rank and file and ...
, the mainstream body for the official party, until that body was dissolved in 1936; in particular one Liberal National cabinet minister,
Walter Runciman elected in 1899, of a wealthy shipping family, remained its President even after the Commons split. Its replacement, the Liberal National Council, the main organ of the local (extra-parliamentary) party, was founded in 1936. However, there were increasing divisions when some Liberal associations endorsed Liberal Nationals, especially at by-elections: frequently Independent Liberals came forward to oppose such a candidate endorsed by the local association that called itself 'Liberal' but was actually Liberal National.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s there were a number of proposals to reunite the two Liberal parties, but these routinely foundered on the question of continued support for the National Government. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
the Liberal Nationals suffered a stream of defectors who joined either the independent Liberals or the Conservatives, or else became non-party supporters of the government. In 1940 the National Government was replaced by an all-party coalition led by
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
; the Liberal Nationals were marginalised, with Simon "kicked upstairs" to become
Lord Chancellor
The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...
. The party's new leader,
Ernest Brown, was only occasionally accorded the status of a party leader within the coalition and otherwise faced questions over the future of the party. Proposals emerged again for the party to reunite with the independent Liberals, but these foundered on Brown's insistence on supporting a revival of the National Government once the Coalition broke up, which the independent Liberals rejected.
After both parties' drubbing and the
Labour Party's victory in the
1945 general election, the two factions made renewed attempts at reuniting. At Westminster the core, independent
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
s were in a shattered state, their tiny numbers representing all shades of opinion; and it was doubtful that the new leader,
Clement Davies
Edward Clement Davies (19 February 1884 – 23 March 1962) was a Welsh politician and leader of the Liberal Party from 1945 to 1956.
Early life and education
Edward Clement Davies was born on 19 February 1884 in Llanfyllin, Montgomeryshire, ...
(himself a former Liberal National who had defected back to the independent Liberals) could carry all of his colleagues into a united party. Only in London (where neither Liberal party had any MPs) were the two reunited at regional organisational level, although in some individual boroughs and constituencies such as
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...
rival Liberal associations began co-operating and eventually merging as avowed Liberal associations. At the same time there were calls from devout Liberal Nationals, who had co-operated closely with the Conservatives and received numerous ministerial posts in the four National Governments, for that entire wing to fully unify with the Conservatives. These Liberal Nationals rarely expressed any overt divergence of opinion with Conservatives. Few political commentators discerned a difference between the two.
Merger with the Conservative Party
In May 1947, the Woolton-Teviot agreement between
Lord Woolton
Frederick James Marquis, 1st Earl of Woolton, (23 August 1883 – 14 December 1964) was an English businessman and politician who served as chairman of the Conservative Party from 1946 to 1955.
In April 1940, he was appointed Minister of Food ...
(for the Conservatives) and
Lord Teviot (for the Liberal Nationals) resulted in the two parties merging at the constituency level. The Liberal Nationals also changed their name to National Liberals at this stage. Their reluctance to take this label originally is said to be a reaction to Lloyd George's use of the name for the earlier National Liberal Party in the 1920s.
The National Liberals therefore fought the next six British general elections as allies of the Conservative Party. To confuse matters, their candidates stood for election with a variety of names including National Liberal, Liberal National, National Liberal and Conservative, Liberal and Conservative and so on. Even established Conservatives with little or no former connection to the original party (including
Randolph Churchill
Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer-Churchill (28 May 1911 – 6 June 1968) was an English journalist, writer, soldier, and politician. He served as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Preston from 1940 to 1945.
The only son of British ...
) after 1950 used the National Liberal name when going forward as candidates in some wards and constituencies.
Immediate consequences for the Liberal Party
Even more than before 1947, the appearance of National Liberal candidates aggrieved the Liberal Party. They saw this as a blatant misappropriation by the Conservative Party of their historic party and to confuse the public. This increased Liberal Party's perilous political position. In 1951 it was only thanks to fraught local arrangements that five of the six remaining Liberal MPs were elected in the absence of a Conservative candidate. Two of these elections were achieved by formal local pacts, whereby only one Liberal or Conservative candidate would stand in each constituency (in
Bolton
Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...
and
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...
). Increasingly, with
electoral deposit In an electoral system, a deposit is the sum of money that a candidate for an elected office, such as a seat in a legislature, is required to pay to an electoral authority before they are permitted to stand for election.
In the typical case, the de ...
s expensive and electoral support low, the Liberal Party fielded few candidates, especially in 1951 and 1955 when the party barely mustered over 100 to stand for Parliament.
Consequences for the National Liberal Party
While the Liberal Party struggled to survive, National Liberals won 17 seats in the 1950 general election. In subsequent elections their numbers increased to 19 (1951), 21 (1955) before dropping back down 19 MPs in (1959). They retained their status as the larger of the two Liberal groupings in Parliament.
During this period two National Liberals held cabinet rank, plus one who sat as a "Liberal":
*
John Scott Maclay, 1st Viscount Muirshiel
John Scott Maclay, 1st Viscount Muirshiel, (26 October 1905 – 17 August 1992) was a British politician, sitting as a National Liberal and Conservative Member of Parliament before the party was fully assimilated into the Unionist Party in Sco ...
was
Secretary of State for Scotland
The secretary of state for Scotland ( gd, Rùnaire Stàite na h-Alba; sco, Secretar o State fir Scotland), also referred to as the Scottish secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the Unit ...
from 1957 to 1962 until sacked (with six other Cabinet ministers) by Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...
.
*
Charles Hill, best known for his work in the 1940s as the Radio Doctor giving nutritional advice on the
BBC Home Service
The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4.
History
1922–1939: Interwar period
Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...
, stood as an Independent in the 1945 general election, but then won the
Luton
Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...
parliamentary seat as a Conservative and National Liberal in 1950. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food in 1951; from 1957 to 1961 he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and from 1961 he was Minister of Housing and Local Government and Welsh Affairs. He lost his place in the Cabinet in Harold Macmillan's reshuffle in 1962.
*
Gwilym Lloyd George
Gwilym Lloyd George, 1st Viscount Tenby, (4 December 1894 – 14 February 1967) was a Welsh politician and cabinet minister. The younger son of David Lloyd George, he served as Home Secretary from 1954 to 1957.
Background, education and milit ...
, MP for
Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...
1922–1950 and for
Newcastle upon Tyne North 1951-1957, had moved away from the Liberal Party by 1946 (though in 1945 he was separately offered the position of party leader by the Liberals and by the Liberal Nationals). He sat as a Liberal, but joined Winston Churchill on the opposition
front bench
In many parliaments and other similar assemblies, seating is typically arranged in banks or rows, with each political party or caucus grouped together. The spokespeople for each group will often sit at the front of their group, and are then kn ...
. Unusually, he never formally joined the National Liberals, and while not sitting on the government benches in 1931, had been independent of the Liberal Party whip since that year and ultimately accepted a junior post in the
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasemen ...
National Government administration in 1939. He served as
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...
from 1954 to 1957.
Merger
By the early 1960s the justification for the continued separate political existence of the National Liberals had become weak. A joint Conservative and National Liberal candidate (
Michael Shaw) gained a seat from the opposition Labour Party in a
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
in
Brighouse and Spenborough
Brighouse and Spenborough was a parliamentary constituency in the West Riding of Yorkshire, comprising the two municipal boroughs of Brighouse and Spenborough and neighbouring areas. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Com ...
in 1960. In 1962,
Ian Gilmour
Ian Hedworth John Little Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar, (8 July 1926 – 21 September 2007) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was styled Sir Ian Gilmour, 3rd Baronet from 1977, having succeeded to his fath ...
, who later achieved Conservative party cabinet status, defended the National Liberal seat of
Central Norfolk as that party's candidate in a by-election. Another noteworthy National Liberal candidate in this time period was the future Deputy Prime Minister
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served a ...
, who had stood as a National Liberal for the
Gower
Gower ( cy, Gŵyr) or the Gower Peninsula () in southwest Wales, projects towards the Bristol Channel. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan. In 1956, the majority of Gower became the first area in the United Kingdom ...
constituency in 1959, then went on to stand as a Conservative for more winnable seats in the 1960s.
After 1962, the party lacked a senior government presence, and with the retirement or death of former leaders, only six with the National Liberal label were elected in the general election of 1964. A further four who had sat with this label preferred to be elected under a 'straight' Conservative label. The post of chairman of the parliamentary party was filled by the former junior minister
David Renton
David Lockhart-Mure Renton, Baron Renton, (12 August 1908 – 24 May 2007) was a British politician who served for over 60 years in Parliament, 34 in the House of Commons and then 28 in the House of Lords.
Renton was Member of Parliament fo ...
, the MP for
Huntingdon
Huntingdon is a market town in the Huntingdonshire district in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was given its town charter by King John in 1205. It was the county town of the historic county of Huntingdonshire. Oliver Cromwell was born there ...
since 1945, with veteran National Liberal
Herbert Butcher
Sir Herbert Walter Butcher, 1st Baronet (12 June 1901 – 11 May 1966) was an English Conservative and National Liberal politician. He sat in the House of Commons from 1937 to 1966.
Butcher was the son of Frank Butcher. He was educated at Hasti ...
(who sat for the seat of
Holland with Boston
Holland with Boston was a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1997. It elected one Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of ...
) remaining their chief whip. Butcher retired before the 1966 general election, in which the National Liberals were reduced to just three MPs (including the future Conservative Party cabinet minister
John Nott
Sir John William Frederic Nott (born 1 February 1932) is a former British Conservative Party politician. He was a senior politician of the late 1970s and early 1980s, playing a prominent role as Secretary of State for Defence during the 1982 in ...
). Two others (
Joan Vickers
Joan Helen Vickers, Baroness Vickers, DBE (3 June 1907 – 23 May 1994) was a British National Liberal and later Conservative Party politician.
Early life
Vickers was born in London on 3 June 1907, the eldest daughter of (Horace) Cecil Vicker ...
and
John Osborn) were elected as Conservatives. With so few MPs, they agreed to give up to the Liberal party a room at the
Westminster Parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, supreme Legislature, legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of We ...
that they had used for their meetings.
In its last years, the party was used by architect
John Poulson
John Garlick Llewellyn Poulson (14 April 1910 – 31 January 1993) was a British architectural designer and businessman who caused a major political scandal when his use of bribery was disclosed in 1972. The highest-ranking figure to be forced ...
as a way into politics while not being fully committed to the Conservatives. Poulson, who was Chairman of the National Liberal Council's Executive Committee from 1964, had little political skill, and his speeches were written by a
Scottish Office
The Scottish Office was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom from 1885 until 1999, exercising a wide range of government functions in relation to Scotland under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Following the e ...
civil servant,
George Pottinger
(William) George Pottinger (11 June 1916 – 15 January 1998)[Sir John Simon
John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon, (28 February 1873 – 11 January 1954), was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second World War. He is one of only three peop ...](_blank)
* 1940–1945:
Ernest Brown
* 1945–1946:
James Henderson-Stewart
* 1946–1947:
Stanley Holmes
* 1947–1956:
John Maclay
John Scott Maclay, 1st Viscount Muirshiel, (26 October 1905 – 17 August 1992) was a British politician, sitting as a National Liberal and Conservative Member of Parliament before the party was fully assimilated into the Unionist Party in Sco ...
* 1956–1959:
James Duncan
* 1959–1961:
James Henderson-Stewart
* 1961–1964:
Colin Thornton-Kemsley
Sir Colin Norman Thornton-Kemsley, (2 September 1903 – 17 July 1977) was a Conservative and National Liberal politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kincardine and Western Aberdeenshire from 1939 to 1950, ...
* 1964–1968:
David Renton
David Lockhart-Mure Renton, Baron Renton, (12 August 1908 – 24 May 2007) was a British politician who served for over 60 years in Parliament, 34 in the House of Commons and then 28 in the House of Lords.
Renton was Member of Parliament fo ...
Electoral performance
Legacy
In October 2013, Conservative MP
Nick Boles
Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles (born 2 November 1965) is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Grantham and Stamford from 2010 to 2019. He was a member of the Conservative Party until 2019.
Before entering Parliament ...
suggested in a speech that the National Liberal Party be revived as an affiliate of the Conservative Party.
See also
*
List of National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) MPs
This is a list of National Liberal Party MPs. It includes all members of Parliament elected to the British House of Commons representing the National Liberal Party (UK, 1931), National Liberal Party, originally known as the Liberal National Par ...
*
National Liberal Party (UK) election results This article lists the National Liberal Party's election results in UK parliamentary elections.
Summary of general election performance
Source: F. W. S. Craig, ''British Electoral Facts, 1885–1975'', p.55
Election results 1931 general elec ...
*
Liberalism in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the word liberalism can have any of several meanings. Scholars use the term to refer to ''classical liberalism''; the term can also mean ''economic liberalism'', ''social liberalism'' or ''political liberalism''; it can ...
*
Scottish Unionist Party
References
{{UK Conservative Party , state=collapsed
Bibliography
* ''The History of the Liberal Party 1895–1970'', by
Roy Douglas
Richard Roy Douglas (12 December 1907 – 23 March 2015) was an English composer, pianist and arranger. He worked as musical assistant to Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Walton, and Richard Addinsell, made well-known orchestrations of works su ...
(Sidgwick & Jackson 1971)
* ''A Short History of the Liberal Party 1900–92'', by Chris Cook (Macmillan Press 1993)
* ''Liberals in Schism: A History of the National Liberal Party'', by David Dutton (London; I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2008)
Liberal Party (UK) breakaway groups
Conservative liberal parties
Defunct political parties in the United Kingdom
Defunct liberal political parties
National liberal parties
Political parties established in 1931
Political parties disestablished in 1968
1931 establishments in the United Kingdom
1968 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
History of the Conservative Party (UK)