WI: Labour becomes third party in 1931

As we all know in the 1931 General Election - the biggest landslide in electoral history - the Labour party was effectively wiped out. They were reduced to just 46 seats with the Liberals not too far behind on 32 and 35 including the National Liberals. The main reason the Liberals did not do as well was because they did not have enough financial support to field more candidates.

So, what if the Liberal Party had fielded more than the 111 otl candidates and as a result come second the General Election? Would they manage to hold on to their newly reclaimed power or would the Labour Party bounce back as they did in 1935? Would we see another Labour/Liberal Prime Minister or would Tory Dominance rule for decades? Would Labour jump further to the left at third party status, or move more to the right in order to counter the Liberal rise?
 
It would certainly be interesting to see a return to the old two party system from the 19th century between the Liberals and the Conservatives. I figure it would look more like Canada.

Would it butterfly away the welfare state? I think not. After all Beveridge was a Liberal. A mass defection of the Labour right to the Liberals?

Either way, it is an interesting scenario...
 
It would certainly be interesting to see a return to the old two party system from the 19th century between the Liberals and the Conservatives. I figure it would look more like Canada.

Would it butterfly away the welfare state? I think not. After all Beveridge was a Liberal. A mass defection of the Labour right to the Liberals?

Either way, it is an interesting scenario...
We'd probably still see a three party system, just if the Liberals saw some kind of mass-revival then Labour would be the third party rather than the Liberals.
 
If the Liberals had gone into 1931 unified you have a greater chance, they may be able to pull more votes in as well but honestly I don't know too much about the Liberal split.
 
The rise of labour was pretty inevitable IMO.
The big problem for labour in its pre ww2 elections was not in getting the people to support them but rather in mobilising their electorate.
If it was simple and easy for everyone to vote then labour would have won every election since WW1 quite comfortably, as things were though it was hard for common working men to be able to get out of work and to the polling booth.
For the post-ww2 election though though you had working life messed up quite a bit, a lot of American motor vehicles lying about, etc... so the masses were able to properly come out and vote.

The potential developments of this pod are interesting though...for labour to have briefly peaked in the 20s only to collapse again....I think its inevitable we would see the rise of labour and the welfare state eventually but to such an extent right after the war? (assuming a butterfly net keeping the same war in place, which is by no means inevitable)
 
Pipisme's excellent and long running TL is worth exploring. The liberal split would not have been resolved in 1931 with better election results.

But Labour was extremely weak in this period. Losing immediate prospects for power straight after governing would lead to more bickering and factionalism than ocurred in OTL, and ultimately strengthen the Conservatives throughout the 1930s.
 
It wasn't just the lack of financial resources that prevented the Liberals from putting up more candidates. Both wings of the Liberal Party were in the National Government which (with a couple of exceptions throughout the country) ran on the one ticket, i.e. in each constituency you had a National candidate (be that Conservative, Liberal or Labour) opposing a Labour candidate. In some constituencies the local Conservative association refused to endorse the official National (Liberal or Labour) candidate and stood its own independent candidate, which caused some friction at the top. If you want more Liberal candidates you need them to have left the National Government by the date of that Parliament is dissolved.
 
Top