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The decline of the Liberal party: David Powell establishes a clear path through the historiographical maze.

Article Excerpt
The reasons for the decline of the Liberal party as a political force in early twentieth century Britain have been a perennial topic of debate since at least the 1960s. The main division of opinion has been between those who regard the Liberal decline as more or less inevitable, because of long-term processes of social, economic and political change (especially the rise of an organised working class), and those who emphasise its more contingent character and the impact of a series of historical 'accidents', in particular the effects of what Trevor Wilson famously called the 'rampant omnibus' of the First World War. To explore these arguments in more detail, and to determine at what point the Liberal decline began or became irreversible, it is necessary to review the Liberal party's history in the pre-war, wartime and post-war periods, in the wider context of a changing political and party system.

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The Pre-War Era

The Liberal party was already experiencing long-term problems towards the end of the Victorian era. In the mid-nineteenth century, Liberalism had represented a broad social and political consensus that united the Whig aristocracy, much of the middle class and the newly-enfranchised urban workers in support of moderate reform. Yet almost at the time of its greatest success, in the election of 1868 which led to the creation of Gladstone's first ministry, this 'Liberal ascendancy' was beginning to break down. Gladstone's reforms alienated his Whig supporters and many middle-class voters. After the split over Irish Home Rule in 1886 the Liberal party was increasingly dependent on more sectional interest groups such as religious Nonconformists, Irish, Welsh and Scottish nationalists, and the artisan radicals of the labour movement. In opposition for most of the 20 years after 1886 (apart from a brief minority government in 1892-5), the Liberals were divided in leadership, particularly after Gladstone's retirement, and suffered from disagreements over direction and policy, culminating in the serious rift between supporters and opponents of the South African War of 1899-1902. There were even times when prominent Liberals like Rosebery and Haldane felt that their party was about to disintegrate and might have to be replaced by an entirely new organisation.

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While the Liberals were losing aristocratic and middle-class support to the Conservatives, their problems were compounded by the developing challenge of organised Labour. Until the mid-1880s the trade unions had worked closely with the Liberal party, and 'Lib-Labism' was an established strand of Liberal politics. Increasingly, though, as socialist ideas began to spread and a more militant brand of 'new unionism' embraced less-skilled workers, the older generation of Lib-Labs found themselves under fire from those who believed that Labour should take a more independent political stance, especially after more working men had received the vote following the franchise reforms of 1884-5. The Liberals responded by recruiting more Lib-Lab MPs (ten by 1892) and by adopting labour reforms as part of their programme, but these efforts were partly undermined by the high-profile refusal of some local Liberal associations to consider Labour candidates and by the worsening climate of industrial relations in the 1890s which made the trade unions determined to seek greater legal protection by increasing their political power. Keir Hardie's Independent Labour Party was founded in 1893 as a socialist alternative to the Liberals. In 1900 it joined with the unions to form the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) as a potential rival to the Liberals for the working-class vote.

The problems of the 1880s and 1890s seemed to be swept away by the Liberal landslide...

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