Challenge: Liberals retain dominant position in UK politics

Arguably 20th century British politics has been defined by a series of splits, declines and revivals amongst the Left set against the far calmer and more dominant Right in the form of the Conservatives. This owes something to the decline of the 'Lib-Labers', trade union MPs sponsored by the Liberal Party due to disagreements over industrial disputes and the rise of groups such as the ILP and SDF. The led to the formation of the parliamentary Labour Representation Committee in 1900, renamed the Labour Party in 1906. Soon Labour proved the fastest growing political party in British History, moving from creation to its first government in 24 years, much to the detriment of the Liberal Party who were effectively spent as an equal political force in the early 1920s.

However is it possible that the Liberals could retain their position?

A major turning point in Liberal-TU relations was the 1901 Taff Vale Case, where a Railway company successfully sued unionists for going on strike due to 'damages' caused by the workers in question not going into work. Balfour's Tory government backed the result while more importantly, the Liberals said little on the matter, though in 1906 they would pass the Trade Disputes Act, effectively overturning the verdict. Regardless the case had a major impact on the nascent Labour movement and by 1903 the LRC's membership had almost tripled in two years to 900,000.

After this, despite efforts and some solid examples of the Liberals being at the forefront of progressive economics well into the 1940s, they continuously lost ground to Labour amongst the working-class, while their only gains were consistently with middle-class Tories.

Philosophically the Labour movement owes a lot to Kiere Hardie and his anti-Marxist Christian Socialism that dominated the ILP, while in terms of numbers and money the TUC was obviously crucial. Hardie was raised an atheist but converted later in life, if this does not happen a major plank of his popular ideas (and the valuable experience of being a lay preacher) goes away.

In relation to the Unions the 1880s-1890s saw a large struggle between various trains of thought, some skilled unions retained a conservative, largely apolitical outlook, while the main conflict was between 'labour representation' which sort Parliamentary influence via Lib-Lab MPs, and the syndicalists, who favoured direct action and 'one-big-union'. If the syndicalists in the form of the General Federation of Trade Unions can win this debate (rather than the TUC did in OTL), labour candidates are pretty much dead in the water, not only due to electoral expenses to also wages while in Parliament and the built-in mass support of union members.

Then you have the Marxists in the form of the Social Democratic Federation under Hyndman who were close to the ILP and embryonic Labour Party. Say no moderate Labour Representation model comes forward in the late 1890s, will the more radical SDF try to fill the gap?

Then you have the effects this will have on the Liberals themselves. In 1886 the recently formed Fabian Society was growing close to them already, with only the Marxist SDF to offer an alternative, the progressive Fabians will probably stick with the Liberals. On top of this, if the Lib-Lab system is still strong by 1910 and the arrival of New Liberalism, we might see the modernisers within the Liberal Party push for greater working-class representation in the Commons and even greater reform in the People's Budget.

So what are people's thoughts?
 
A possibly weaker trade union movement, springing from whatever event/s you wish I suppose. Maybe a split between in the Trade Union movement between the skilled and unskilled unions?
 
A couple of thoughts

-1- on the one hand, Joseph Chamberlain led a load of Liberals into the Tory party at the end of the 19th century

-2- The Liberals do not necessarily need to fear the rise of Labour if they can marginalise the Tories.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Indeed well there was tension between the older, skilled Unions (effectively craft guilds) and the so-called New Unions that emerged in the 1880s for unskilled workers. If the SDF is successful and getting the support of some unskilled Unions we could see a more radical, but far less successful Socialist Party arise by the early 1900s.
 
There is a debate about the effect of World War 1 and the Lloyd George/Asquith split on the Liberal party. The bus analogy has been used with World War I compared to a bus. Did the bus run over a Liberal party which was fundamentally healthy and seriously injure it, or did it ran over an already ailing party? I am inclined to the first view.
 
There is a debate about the effect of World War 1 and the Lloyd George/Asquith split on the Liberal party. The bus analogy has been used with World War I compared to a bus. Did the bus run over a Liberal party which was fundamentally healthy and seriously injure it, or did it ran over an already ailing party? I am inclined to the first view.


I think the Lib/Lab issue was definately a huge threat to the Liberal Party, which may well have destroyed them in the long run. But we will never know as the WW1 split essentially won the issue for the Labour Party. If they hadn't split like that then perhaps they would have had the institutional strength to either fight off the Labour Party or perhaps come to some sort of formal accomodation post war - some sort of merger of equals or something?
 
The main impact of the war on this issue (remembering the pacifist split in the Labour Party didn't do them many favours) is that it gave Lloyd-George the chance to form a grand coalition which he had been itching to do for years. It allowed him to create a more technocratic system, with civil servants, committees and businessmen dominating over Ministers. Post-war he tried to continue this, causing the split in the party that didn't really heal until after WWII, and he became reliant on Tory MPs to continue as Prime Minister. This itself was a key reason for many working-class voters turning away from the Liberals as a whole, the man behind the People's Budget and Lords reform siding with the Conservatives was too much.

If Lloyd-George never gets a chance to form such a massive coalition (shorter war?) that itself might do the Liberals a world of good although it would have a major impact of how British Government runs if the major War Coalition reforms aren't brought in.
 
In the general election of December 1910, there were 272 Liberals elected and 42 Labour. The Liberals won Labour seats in by-elections at Hanley on 13 July 1912 and at Chesterfield on 20 August 1913. Between January 1911 and July 1914, the Liberals lost a several seats to the Tories in by-elections.

A hypothetical general election in 1915 without British intervention in WWI would most likely have resulted in a Tory victory, but Labour would have done little better than in December 1910, perhaps worse.

World War 1 damaged Liberal peace credentials, so that there was a steady drift of pacifist/pacifist inclined Liberals to Labour during the war.

Baldwin, the Tory leader wanted the Liberal party destroyed and replaced by the Labour party as the alternative party of government. That was why he wanted Ramsay MacDonald, the Labour leader to become Prime Minister of a minority government in January 1924, rather than Asquith.

When right-wing Liberals no longer perceived their party as a sufficient bulwark against socialism they crossed over to the Tories.
 
The Liberal Party was too closely associated with the fight against women's sufferage to survive their failure in 1918. They either prevent women getting the vote or they grant women the vote in the late 1880s.
 
The Liberal Party was too closely associated with the fight against women's sufferage to survive their failure in 1918. They either prevent women getting the vote or they grant women the vote in the late 1880s.
I hadn't heard that. Do you have any links or sources for that?
 
TBF the Suffrage Movement didn't exactly gain a massive victory in 1918, they had stopped protesting at the outbreak of war, and the vote was granted along with total male suffrage as 'reward' and was led by Lloyd-George and his campaign for a country fit for heroes. Also the issue of female suffrage was oppossed by most in both the Conservative and Liberal parties, hell even some elements of the comparatively radical Labour Party.

Though female suffrage does have one effect, for much of the 20th century British women voted overwhemingly Tory, apparently.
 
The decline of the Liberals began in the 1890's when the Liberal caucuses were not coming to terms with working class emancipation and were not adopting enough lib lab candidates. Outside certain mining areas in England and Wales where the miners federation dominated the caucuses there few lib labbers adopted. If there had been around 50 selected in winnable seats say by 1895 things may have been different and the lib-labbers would have retained control of the TUC.

The lib labbers reached their height in 1906 but were outnumbered by LRC M.Ps by then and by the 1910 election their numbers were drastically reduced when the miners changed their allegiance. The extension of the franchise in 1918 hastened the decline of the Liberal Party but it had already lost its working class support before the Lloyd George Asquith schism
 
The main impact of the war on this issue (remembering the pacifist split in the Labour Party didn't do them many favours) is that it gave Lloyd-George the chance to form a grand coalition which he had been itching to do for years. It allowed him to create a more technocratic system, with civil servants, committees and businessmen dominating over Ministers. Post-war he tried to continue this, causing the split in the party that didn't really heal until after WWII, and he became reliant on Tory MPs to continue as Prime Minister. This itself was a key reason for many working-class voters turning away from the Liberals as a whole, the man behind the People's Budget and Lords reform siding with the Conservatives was too much.

If Lloyd-George never gets a chance to form such a massive coalition (shorter war?) that itself might do the Liberals a world of good although it would have a major impact of how British Government runs if the major War Coalition reforms aren't brought in.

Jape

How about this for a possibility. Played with it in a slightly different war. In 1917 Haig presents his proposals for the Passendale campaign and Lloyd George listens to concerns by other military about the plan. Or possibly, finding out about the French mutinies the Germans launch an offensive against them and they desperately call for Britain to do something to distract the Germans. [In this case an offensive in Flanders, preceeded by a prolonged bombardment is seen as irrelevant].

Anyway, that's the background. The POD is that L-G sacks Haig when the latter refuses to budge on his plans. The Conservatives, who strongly supported the idea of leaving the war to the generals object strongly and after some manouvering withdraw from the coalition. [Probably expected an already divided Liberal Party to be unable to govern and clearing the way for them to take over].

It doesn't matter greatly whether alternative military plans are more successful or not - as long as the allies still win the war of course;). Or greatly whether the Liberals stay in power or a Tory minority government takes over. Ideally the Liberals will stay in power and be more successful than OTL and the Tories will be seen by many to have played politics with the nations future in a deep wartime crisis. However even if the Tories come to power, especially if you get something like the OTL Passendale campaign, the emphesis is on the divide between the two main parties and L-G is free to return to his radical roots. In the next couple of elections Labour are largely eclipsed as the reformists rally around the Liberals.

Steve
 
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