AHC: The UK Liberals Remain A Major Party

How could the Liberal Party remain a major party in UK politics? What would become of Labour? And how would these still-dominant Liberals perform electorally in the later 20th century?
 
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I'd like to discuss two points in this thread:

~How could the Liberals be kept around as the main opposition to the Tories, with Labour being the third wheel in the UK's party system?
~If the Liberals stayed a major party, how often would they form governments and what would their general electoral performance look like?

Personally, I imagine a major Liberal party would be more electorally successful than OTL Labour and give the Tories a run for their money.

Well, no, because the factors that destroyed the Liberals are still there, and won't go away if you just handwave the party into sticking around as a relevant force. A working class movement was going to rock British politics sooner or later, and it's probably easier to keep the Liberals around in place of the Tories than in place of Labour.

Now, if the Liberals can successfully keep their late-19th century proto-Labour links going and turn into a far broader alliance of trade unionists and middle class businesspeople (herein lies the problem of why the Tories survived the rise of Labour and the Liberals did not - the Liberals' support could jump into the Tories, not so much the other way around, and Labour's could sit with neither), then... maybe. Perhaps there's a TL to be written about a de facto 'British US Democratic Party' coming into being. I don't know.

What I do know is that the Liberals, especially if Labour are the third party, are not going to be giving the Tories a run for their money any more often than Labour did IOTL. That seems like a wish-fulfilment desire, not one based on facts - the makeup of Britain is such that the Tories and Liberals would eventually be so similar that Labour would break through, as per OTL, just later. To avoid all this would require changing Britain - arguably Europe and the rest of the world, because of international trade and WWI - to such an extent that this exercise becomes pointless.

EDIT: You've edited your OP to remove your assertions, but I'll let this post stand.
 
Well, no, because the factors that destroyed the Liberals are still there, and won't go away if you just handwave the party into sticking around as a relevant force. A working class movement was going to rock British politics sooner or later, and it's probably easier to keep the Liberals around in place of the Tories than in place of Labour.

Now, if the Liberals can successfully keep their late-19th century proto-Labour links going and turn into a far broader alliance of trade unionists and middle class businesspeople (herein lies the problem of why the Tories survived the rise of Labour and the Liberals did not - the Liberals' support could jump into the Tories, not so much the other way around, and Labour's could sit with neither), then... maybe. Perhaps there's a TL to be written about a de facto 'British US Democratic Party' coming into being. I don't know.

What I do know is that the Liberals, especially if Labour are the third party, are not going to be giving the Tories a run for their money any more often than Labour did IOTL. That seems like a wish-fulfilment desire, not one based on facts - the makeup of Britain is such that the Tories and Liberals would eventually be so similar that Labour would break through, as per OTL, just later. To avoid all this would require changing Britain - arguably Europe and the rest of the world, because of international trade and WWI - to such an extent that this exercise becomes pointless.

EDIT: You've edited your OP to remove your assertions, but I'll let this post stand.

Point taken.

Out of interest, would the Tories falling to Labour instead of the Liberals be at all possible?
 
Point taken.

Out of interest, would the Tories falling to Labour instead of the Liberals be at all possible?

There was once a Tory socialist in the 19th century and later on the Tory central office funded some proto-Labour candidates to split the Liberal vote and ensure Tory gains, but this was an abject failure.

Ultimately, their ideological positions and class backgrounds made any large-scale crossover appeal impossible: most sane Tory voters would rather vote Liberal than Labour, even though the former were their traditional rivals. Labour were dangerous because they were new and scary and fundamentally opposed to the central planks of Toryism.
 
The best option I can come up with is for the Liberals under either Lloyd George or Asquith to form an electoral pact with the nascent Labour party as with the Liberal and National parties in Australia.

So have the two parties agree to not stand in each others districts and whichever party gets the highest seat count brings the other into the Government. It would create a nigh on permanent coalition, but it works in Australia.
 
One way to keep the Liberal Party as one of the Big Two would be to prevent the split that occurred in the middle of WWI when Asquith was pushed out, and succeeded by David Lloyd George. To maintain a stable government during the War, a National Government comprising of Lloyd George's Liberal Faction, the Conservatives, and Labour was formed, and maintained for the 1918 Election.

Reuniting the Liberal Party and fighting as a united Liberal Party in 1918 would certainly help them but demands massive changes from OTL to make this possible. As would not having the Cash-for-Peerage Scandal that did them no favours whatsoever.

But ultimately, when Labour were able to Rise, and with the country growing weary of the Liberal Party who'd been in Government since 1905, support went to the Conservatives and Labour in 1922, and by enough to see the Liberal Party go into serious decline from which they never really recovered.

If the Conservatives had been the largest party and in Government just before the outbreak of WWI, then there is a possibility that they'd be the ones to Fall not long after as Labour gain in seats, support, and relevance, with the Liberal Party picking up a good chunk of the Conservative Base. To me, this seems like the most likely of all the ways to keep the Liberal Party Relevant - at the expense of the Conservatives.
 
A general problem of Liberal parties all over Europe was that they were essentially aristocratic, or upper middle-class 'dignitary' parties which were doomed to failure as soon as a universal suffrage came.

Conservative parties were quicker in gaining the support of new voter groups, and when working-class people were also finally allowed to vote they tended to go for social democratic parties. Liberal parties seemed to have problems in adapting to the habits of a modern mass society. Extension of voting rights and the decline of the major liberal parties went hand in hand in the UK, Germany and France.

So basically the Liberal Party would have to become more 'populist' already at the time before the Reform acts of 1867 and 1884.


A more recent development: How about the Conservatives basically stick to One Nation Toryism in the 1970s? Then the Liberals could become the "Thatcherite" party, presenting itself as the only alternative to the post-war consensus.
 
Well, no, because the factors that destroyed the Liberals are still there, and won't go away if you just handwave the party into sticking around as a relevant force. A working class movement was going to rock British politics sooner or later, and it's probably easier to keep the Liberals around in place of the Tories than in place of Labour.

Now, if the Liberals can successfully keep their late-19th century proto-Labour links going and turn into a far broader alliance of trade unionists and middle class businesspeople (herein lies the problem of why the Tories survived the rise of Labour and the Liberals did not - the Liberals' support could jump into the Tories, not so much the other way around, and Labour's could sit with neither), then... maybe. Perhaps there's a TL to be written about a de facto 'British US Democratic Party' coming into being. I don't know.

What I do know is that the Liberals, especially if Labour are the third party, are not going to be giving the Tories a run for their money any more often than Labour did IOTL. That seems like a wish-fulfilment desire, not one based on facts - the makeup of Britain is such that the Tories and Liberals would eventually be so similar that Labour would break through, as per OTL, just later. To avoid all this would require changing Britain - arguably Europe and the rest of the world, because of international trade and WWI - to such an extent that this exercise becomes pointless.

I find it difficult to dispute a single one of the very good arguments you make here. They all seem both valid and sound as far as I can tell. Still, I find myself asking, then why did the Liberals manage to survive as the major center-left party in Canada? Surely it cannot entirely be attributed to the Canadian Tories for decades being surprisingly inept for a major party?

There was once a Tory socialist in the 19th century and later on the Tory central office funded some proto-Labour candidates to split the Liberal vote and ensure Tory gains, but this was an abject failure.

Ah, yes, the Tory Socialist in the 19th century. Yeah it was kind of hard to miss that one. The Cross-Temporal Policing Agency HQ in 2759 certainly didn't miss it when they did their review of possible renegade time-traveller cases, and indeed, Thande was caught and his time machine confiscated to prevent him from going back to the 19th century again and standing for Parliament.
 
The best option I can come up with is for the Liberals under either Lloyd George or Asquith to form an electoral pact with the nascent Labour party as with the Liberal and National parties in Australia.

So have the two parties agree to not stand in each others districts and whichever party gets the highest seat count brings the other into the Government. It would create a nigh on permanent coalition, but it works in Australia.

Oh, now that would make for an interesting TL.
 
Scenarios...

I've seen one where the Liberals do better in the 1923 election and regain second party status from Labour with Asquith forming a minority Liberal Government supported by Labour.

Based on the Yellow Book, Labour is subsumed back into the centre-left Liberal Party which trades office with the Conservatives for the rest of the 20th Century.

Another possibility is to have the Conservatives split over the Abdication Crisis of 1936 (Churchill and other pro-Edward VIII supporters wanted to form a King's Party).

Clearly, you could have a more successful SDP schism from Labour in 1981 (includes the "wet" Tories, no Falklands War or a British defeat) that might put the Alliance (including the Liberals) as the main alternative to the Conservatives.

Slightly out of scope, but a disastrous 2005 election for the Conservatives under Iain Duncan-Smith sees them finish third and then schism over Europe with a faction led by David Cameron joining Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats and winning the 2010 election.
 
Ah, yes, the Tory Socialist in the 19th century. Yeah it was kind of hard to miss that one. The Cross-Temporal Policing Agency HQ in 2759 certainly didn't miss it when they did their review of possible renegade time-traveller cases, and indeed, Thande was caught and his time machine confiscated to prevent him from going back to the 19th century again and standing for Parliament.

'Again'? Has he already been back to conduct interviews with Harry Church? :eek:

It occurs to me that the introduction of STV in the 1920s could keep the Liberals vaguely relevant, with enough of an opportunity to lead governments later on.
 
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