National Liberal Party (UK, 1931)
Encyclopedia
The National Liberal Party, known until 1948 as the Liberal National Party, was a liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 political party in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 from 1931 to 1968. It broke away from the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

, and later merged with the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

.

History

The Liberal Nationals evolved as a distinctive group within the Liberal Party when the main body of Liberals were maintaining in office the second Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 government of Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....

, who lacked a majority in Parliament. A growing number of Liberal MPs led by Sir John Simon
John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon
John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon GCSI GCVO OBE PC was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second. He is one of only three people to have served as Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer,...

 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, an anathema to many traditional Liberals. By June 1931, three Liberal MPs including Simon, Ernest Brown
Ernest Brown
Alfred Ernest Brown CH was a British politician who served as leader of the Liberal Nationals from 1940 until 1945.-Biography:...

 and Robert Hutchison
Robert Hutchison, 1st Baron Hutchison of Montrose
Major-General Robert Hutchison, 1st Baron Hutchison of Montrose KCMG, CB, DSO, PC was a Scottish soldier and Liberal politician.-Background:Hutchison was the son of Alexander Hutchison, of Braehead, Kirkcaldy, Fife...

 (an ex-Lloyd George supporting coalitionist/National Liberal) resigned their party's whip and sat as independents.

When the Labour Government was replaced by a National Government
UK National Government
In the United Kingdom the term National Government is an abstract concept referring to a coalition of some or all major political parties. In a historical sense it usually refers primarily to the governments of Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain which held office from 1931...

 in August 1931, dissident Liberals were temporarily reconciled with the rest of their party within the coalition, but in the following two months the acting Liberal leader, Herbert Samuel
Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel
Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel GCB OM GBE PC was a British politician and diplomat.-Early years:...

, came close to resigning from the government over proposals 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 other Liberals such as Sir John Simon
John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon
John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon GCSI GCVO OBE PC was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second. He is one of only three people to have served as Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer,...

 to continue to support the National Government and even take the vacant offices to ensure it retained a broad party base. Samuel was rescued by a proposal to fight the general election on separate manifestoes, but the Liberal Nationals were prepared to repudiate free trade, and so two separate groups of Liberals who supported the National Government evolved in the 1931 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1931
The United Kingdom general election on Tuesday 27 October 1931 was the last in the United Kingdom not held on a Thursday. It was also the last election, and the only one under universal suffrage, where one party received an absolute majority of the votes cast.The 1931 general election was the...

. (A third group under the official leader, David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

, also emerged, known as "Independent Liberals", who opposed the National Government completely, but this had few adherents amongst prominent Liberals beyond Lloyd George's own relatives. In 1935 they reunited with the "Samuelite" Liberals.)

Following the election, the Liberals following John Simon formally repudiated the official Liberal Party in Parliament and operated to all extents and purposes as a separate party group, though they did not become fully recognised as one immediately. In 1932 the "Samuelite" Liberals resigned from the government over the Ottawa Conference and the introduction of a series of tariff agreements, though they continued to support the National Government from the backbenches. The following year they abandoned it completely and crossed the floor of the House of Commons, leaving the Liberal Nationals supporting the government. The two groupings were now completely separated, though some Liberal MPs like Robert Bernays
Robert Bernays
Robert Hamilton Bernays was a Liberal Party, and later Liberal National, politician in the United Kingdom who served as a Member of Parliament from 1931 to 1945....

 remained on the Government benches before eventually joining the Liberal Nationals, and other MPs maintained links across the floor.

Within the wider party the split was not so clear. Liberal Associations who supported Liberal National candidates remained affiliated to the National Liberal Federation
National Liberal Federation
The National Liberal Federation was the union of all English and Welsh Liberal Associations. It held an annual conference which was regarded as being representative of the opinion of the party’s rank and file and was broadly the equivalent of a present-day party conference.-Foundation:The...

, the mainstream body for the official party, until that body was dissolved in 1936, while one Liberal National Cabinet Minister, Walter Runciman
Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford
Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford PC was a prominent Liberal, later National Liberal politician in the United Kingdom from the 1900s until the 1930s.-Background:...

, remained President of the National Liberal Federation even after the two groups were on opposite sides of the Commons. The Liberal National Council, the main national organ for the extra parliamentary party, was not founded until 1936. However there were increasing divisions when some Liberal associations endorsed other National candidates in elections, especially by-elections, and on several occasions independent Liberals would come forward to challenge a National candidate endorsed by the local association that called itself 'Liberal' but was in truth 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. Matters peaked during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 when 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
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 and the Liberal Nationals were marginalised, with Simon "kicked upstairs" to become Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...

. The party's new leader, Ernest Brown
Ernest Brown
Alfred Ernest Brown CH was a British politician who served as leader of the Liberal Nationals from 1940 until 1945.-Biography:...

, 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 of supporting a revival of the National Government once the Coalition broke up, which the independent Liberals rejected.

After the Labour Party's
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 victory in the 1945 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...

, there were renewed attempts at reuniting. At Westminster the independent Liberals were in a shattered state, with the tiny Parliamentary Party representing all shades of opinion and it was doubtful that the new leader, Clement Davies
Clement Davies
Clement Edward Davies KC, MP was a Welsh politician and leader of the Liberal Party from 1945 to 1956.-Life:...

 (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
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....

 rival Liberal associations began co-operating and eventually merging as avowed Liberal associations. At the same time there were calls for the Liberal Nationals to fully unify with the Conservatives, with whom they had co-operated closely for many years, to the point where few political commentators could tell the difference.

In May 1947 the 'Woolton-Teviot' agreement between Lord Woolton (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 five 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', 'National Liberal and Conservative', 'Liberal and Conservative' and so on. In addition a number of Conservatives with little or no former connection to the original party (including Randolph Churchill
Randolph Churchill
Major Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer-Churchill, MBE was the son of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament for Preston from 1940 to 1945....

) added the National Liberal name when going forward as candidates.

The appearance of the National Liberal candidates did not go down too well with an aggrieved Liberal Party. They saw this as a blatant attempt by the Conservative Party to appropriate their historic party name but the Liberals themselves were in a parlous political position. In 1951, thanks to local electoral pacts, no fewer than five of the six remaining Liberal MPs were elected in the absence of a Conservative candidate, and, in two cases, by the operation of formal local electoral pacts in (Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

 and Huddersfield
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....

). The Liberals were not able to field many candidates for election either, especially in 1951 and 1955 when the party had barely mustered over 100 to stand for Parliament.

While the Liberal Party struggled to survive, the National Liberals managed to win 17 seats in the 1950 general election. In subsequent elections their numbers increased to 19 (1951), 21 (1955) and 19 (1959) making them the larger of the two Liberal groupings in Parliament.

During this period three National Liberals held cabinet rank:
  • Gwilym Lloyd George, who had moved away from the Liberal Party by 1946 (though in 1945 he was separately offered the job of party leader by both the Liberals and Liberal Nationals). He sat as a 'Liberal' and joined Winston Churchill on the opposition Front Bench. Lloyd George appears to have never formerly joined the Liberal National/National Liberals but had been in effect independent of the Liberal mainstream since 1931 and in fact had accepted a junior post in the Neville Chamberlain
    Neville Chamberlain
    Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...

     National Government administration) in 1939. He served as Home Secretary
    Home Secretary
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...

     from 1954 to 1957.
  • John Scott Maclay, 1st Viscount Muirshiel was Secretary of State for Scotland
    Secretary of State for Scotland
    The Secretary of State for Scotland is the principal minister of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Scotland. He heads the Scotland Office , a government department based in London and Edinburgh. The post was created soon after the Union of the Crowns, but was...

     from 1957 to 1962 until sacked from office (with six other Cabinet ministers) by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
    Harold Macmillan
    Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....

    .
  • Charles Hill
    Charles Hill, Baron Hill of Luton
    Charles Hill, Baron Hill of Luton PC was a British administrator, doctor and television executive.Charles Hill was born in Islington, London and was educated at St Olave's Grammar School in Southwark, London. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge where he gained a first class degree...

    , best known for his work in the 1940s as the 'Radio Doctor' for his nutritional advice on the BBC
    BBC
    The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

     Home Service, stood as an Independent in the 1945 general election but then won the Luton
    Luton
    Luton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....

     parliamentary seat as Conservative and National Liberal in 1950. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food in 1951 and from 1957 to 1961 he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and from 1961 he was to Minister of Housing and Local Government and Welsh Affairs. He lost his place in the Cabinet in Harold Macmillan's reshuffle in 1962.

Merger

However, by the early 1960s it was obvious there was very little point to the continued separate political existence of the National Liberals. A joint Conservative and National Liberal candidate gained a seat in a by-election
Brighouse and Spenborough by-election, 1960
A by-election was held for the British House of Commons constituency of Brighouse and Spenborough on 17th March 1960. The seat became vacant following the death on 23 November 1959 of the Labour Party Member of Parliament Lewis John Edwards, who had held the seat since a by-election in 1950, but...

 in Brighouse and Spenborough
Brighouse and Spenborough (UK Parliament constituency)
Brighouse and Spenborough was a parliamentary constituency in the West Riding of Yorkshire, comprising the areas of the two municipal boroughs of Brighouse and Spenborough...

 in 1960. The future Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...

 - who was added to the Conservative Candidates' List while still at Oxford by Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....

 (then a whip) - stood as a National Liberal for Gower 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, the MP for Huntingdon
Huntingdon
Huntingdon is a market town in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was chartered by King John in 1205. It is the traditional county town of Huntingdonshire, and is currently the seat of the Huntingdonshire district council. It is known as the birthplace in 1599 of Oliver Cromwell.-History:Huntingdon...

 since 1945, with veteran National Liberal Herbert Butcher
Herbert Butcher
Sir Herbert Walter Butcher, 1st Baronet was an English Conservative and National Liberalpolitician. He sat in the House of Commons from 1937 to 1966....

 (who sat for the seat of Holland with Boston) 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
John Nott
Sir John William Frederic Nott KCB is a former British Conservative Party politician prominent in the late 1970s and early 1980s...

). Two others (Joan Vickers
Joan Vickers
Joan Helen Vickers, Baroness Vickers, DBE was a British National Liberal and Conservative Party politician.Vickers was educated at St Monica's, Burgh Heath, Surrey, and in Paris. She served with the Red Cross in South East Asia and was area welfare officer of the Social Welfare Department in...

 and John Osborn) were elected as Conservatives. With so few MPs, they agreed to give up a room at the Westminster Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 that they had used for their meetings to the Liberal party.

In their last years, the party was used by corrupt architect John Poulson
John Poulson
John Garlick Llewellyn Poulson was a British architect and businessman who caused a major political scandal when his use of bribery was disclosed in 1972. The highest-ranking figure to be forced out was Conservative Home Secretary Reginald Maudling...

 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 civil servant, George Pottinger, who was on his payroll. However, the party had lost most of its senior members and in 1968 the remaining National Liberals, still led by David Renton, assimilated completely into the Conservative Party.

See also

  • List of National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) MPs
  • Liberalism in the United Kingdom
    Liberalism in the United Kingdom
    This article gives an overview of liberalism in the United Kingdom. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in that scheme...

  • Scottish Unionist Party
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK