111-610: The Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the end of World War I . Isaac Butt founded the Home Government Association in 1870. This was succeeded in 1873 by the Home Rule League , and in 1882 by
222-489: A Liberal base were deeply split. Ensor notes that, "London society, following the known views of the Queen, practically ostracized home rulers." The new Liberal leader was the ineffectual Lord Rosebery . He led the party to a heavy defeat in the 1895 general election . The Liberal Party lacked a unified ideological base in 1906. It contained numerous contradictory and hostile factions, such as imperialists and supporters of
333-751: A century, free trade remained the one cause which could unite all Liberals. In 1841, the Liberals lost office to the Conservatives under Sir Robert Peel , but their period in opposition was short because the Conservatives split over the repeal of the Corn Laws , a free trade issue; and a faction known as the Peelites (but not Peel himself, who died soon after) aligned to the Liberal side on
444-516: A coalition that replaced him in late 1916. However, Asquith remained as Liberal Party leader. The split between Lloyd George's breakaway faction and Asquith's official Liberal faction badly weakened the party. The coalition government of Lloyd George was increasingly dominated by the Conservative Party, which finally ousted him as prime minister in 1922. The subsequent Liberal collapse was quick and catastrophic. With 400 MPs elected in
555-428: A curtailment of their powers. Now their unlimited veto was replaced with a delaying one lasting only two years. The Third Home Rule Bill introduced in 1912 was as in 1886 and 1893 ferociously opposed by Ulster unionists , for whom Home Rule was synonymous with Rome Rule as well as being indicative of economic decline and a threat to their cultural and industrial identity. Edward Carson and James Craig , leaders of
666-528: A dangerous rival, and rejoiced at the chance to destroy her. They meant to fight a hard-headed war by ruthless methods; they condemned Liberal 'softness' before the war and now. The Liberals insisted on remaining high-minded. Many of them had come to support the war only when the Germans invaded Belgium. [...] Entering the war for idealistic motives, the Liberals wished to fight it by noble means and found it harder to abandon their principles than to endure defeat in
777-531: A developing capitalist society, but they could not respond effectively as economic and social conditions changed. Called the "Grand Old Man" later in life, Gladstone was always a dynamic popular orator who appealed strongly to the working class and to the lower middle class. Deeply religious, Gladstone brought a new moral tone to politics, with his evangelical sensibility and his opposition to aristocracy. His moralism often angered his upper-class opponents (including Queen Victoria ), and his heavy-handed control split
888-596: A dominion beyond. Gladstone finally retired in 1894. Gladstone's support for Home Rule deeply divided the party, and it lost its upper and upper-middle-class base, while keeping support among Protestant nonconformists and the Celtic fringe. Historian R. C. K. Ensor reports that after 1886, the main Liberal Party was deserted by practically the entire whig peerage and the great majority of the upper-class and upper-middle-class members. High prestige London clubs that had
999-592: A government. Historian Robert Blake explains the dilemma: [T]he Liberals were traditionally the party of freedom of speech, conscience and trade. They were against jingoism, heavy armaments and compulsion. [...] Liberals were neither wholehearted nor unanimous about conscription, censorship, the Defence of the Realm Act , severity toward aliens and pacifists, direction of labour and industry. The Conservatives [...] had no such misgivings. Blake further notes that it
1110-618: A lesser role in party affairs after 1900. The party, furthermore, also included Irish Catholics, and secularists from the labour movement. Many Conservatives (including Winston Churchill ) had recently protested against high tariff moves by the Conservatives by switching to the anti-tariff Liberal camp, but it was unclear how many old Conservative traits they brought along, especially on military and naval issues. The middle-class business, professional and intellectual communities were generally strongholds, although some old aristocratic families played important roles as well. The working-class element
1221-713: A massive victory: Labour increased their position slightly, but the Asquithian Liberals were decimated. Those remaining Liberal MPs who were opposed to the Coalition Government went into opposition under the parliamentary leadership of Sir Donald MacLean who also became Leader of the Opposition . Asquith, who had appointed MacLean, remained as overall Leader of the Liberal Party even though he lost his seat in 1918. Asquith returned to Parliament in 1920 and resumed leadership. Between 1919 and 1923,
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#17327800125871332-586: A meeting at Clontarf, Dublin , which had been banned by the authorities. Until the 1870s, most Irish voters elected members of the main British political parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives , as their Members of Parliament (MPs). The Conservatives, for example, won a majority in the 1859 general election in Ireland . Conservatives and (after 1886) Liberal Unionists fiercely resisted any dilution of
1443-448: A new system of protectionist tariffs. Campbell-Bannerman was able to rally the party around the traditional liberal platform of free trade and land reform and led them to the greatest election victory in their history. This would prove the last time the Liberals won a majority in their own right. Although he presided over a large majority, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was overshadowed by his ministers, most notably H. H. Asquith at
1554-523: A provisional government and armed resistance in Ulster . The Ulster Protestants had the full support of the Conservatives, whose leader, Bonar Law , was of Ulster-Scots descent. Government plans to deploy troops into Ulster had to be cancelled after the threat of mass resignation of their commissions by army officers in March 1914 ( see Curragh Incident ). Ireland seemed to be on the brink of civil war when
1665-465: A rather desperate manner to hold on to power. The result was a catastrophic split in the Liberal Party, and heavy defeat in the 1886 election at the hands of Lord Salisbury , who was supported by the breakaway Liberal Unionist Party . There was a final weak Gladstone ministry in 1892, but it also was dependent on Irish support and failed to get Irish Home Rule through the House of Lords. Historically,
1776-475: A strong appeal to the nonconformist middle-class Liberal element, which felt liberated by the departure of the aristocracy. A major long-term consequence of the Third Reform Act was the rise of Lib-Lab candidates. The Act split all county constituencies (which were represented by multiple MPs) into single-member constituencies , roughly corresponding to population patterns. With the foundation of
1887-564: A strong, welfare-oriented, and interventionist state. After the historic 1906 victory, the Liberal Party introduced multiple reforms on a range of issues, including health insurance , unemployment insurance , and pensions for elderly workers, thereby laying the groundwork for the future British welfare state . Some proposals failed, such as licensing fewer pubs, or rolling back Conservative educational policies. The People's Budget of 1909, championed by David Lloyd George and fellow Liberal Winston Churchill , introduced unprecedented taxes on
1998-531: A three-way split in 1931. Many prominent intellectuals were active in the party, including philosopher John Stuart Mill , economist John Maynard Keynes , and social planner William Beveridge . Winston Churchill during his years as a Liberal (1904–1924) authored Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909). The Liberal Party grew out of the Whigs , who had their origins in an aristocratic faction in
2109-587: Is particularly to offer unrelenting hostility to every British Ministry while one link of the imperial chain remains to fetter the constitutional freedom of the Irish nation." Charles Stewart Parnell sought through the "constitutional movement", as an interim measure a parliament in Dublin with limited legislative powers. For Unionists , Home Rule meant a Dublin parliament dominated by the Catholic Church to
2220-568: Is that the British people were so deeply divided over numerous issues, but on all sides, there was growing distrust of the Asquith government. There was no agreement whatsoever on wartime issues. The leaders of the two parties realized that embittered debates in Parliament would further undermine popular morale and so the House of Commons did not once discuss the war before May 1915. Taylor argues: The Unionists, by and large, regarded Germany as
2331-650: The 1880 general election , the League won 63 seats. In 1882, Parnell turned the Home Rule League into the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), a formally organized party which became a major political force. The IPP came to dominate Irish politics, to the exclusion of the previous Liberal, Conservative, and Unionist parties that had existed there. In the 1885 general election , the IPP won 85 out of
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#17327800125872442-583: The 1892 general election Gladstone, made a second attempt to introduce Irish Home Rule following Parnell's death with the Government of Ireland Bill 1893 . This bill was drafted in secret and considered flawed. It was steered through the Commons by William O'Brien , with a majority of 30 votes, only to be defeated in the Conservative 's pro- unionist majority controlled House of Lords . In 1894,
2553-623: The 1918 general election , Lloyd George, hailed as "the Man Who Won the War", led his coalition into a khaki election . Lloyd George and the Conservative leader Bonar Law wrote a joint letter of support to candidates to indicate they were considered the official Coalition candidates—this " coupon ", as it became known, was issued against many sitting Liberal MPs, often to devastating effect, though not against Asquith himself. The coalition won
2664-570: The 36th (Ulster) Division . Between 1914 and 1918 Irish regiments suffered severe losses. A core element of the remaining Irish Volunteers who opposed the nationalist constitutional movement towards independence and the Irish support for the war effort, staged the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin. Initially widely condemned in both Britain and Ireland, the British government 's mishandling of
2775-616: The All-for-Ireland Party , brushed unionist concerns aside with "no concessions for Ulster", treating their threat as a bluff. The Act received Royal Assent and was placed on the statute books on 18 September 1914, but under the Suspensory Act was deferred for no longer than the duration of World War I which had broken out in August. The widely held assumption at the time was that the war would be short lived. With
2886-590: The Fenians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood , strove to achieve total separation from Great Britain, if necessary by physical force, and complete autonomy for Ireland. For a while they were prepared to co-operate with Home Rulers under the "New Departure" . In 1875 John O'Connor Power told a New York audience that "[Ireland] has elected a body of representatives whose mission is simply – I almost said solely – but certainly whose mission
2997-630: The First World War broke out in August 1914. Asquith had offered the Six Counties (later to become Northern Ireland ) an opt out from Home Rule for six years (i.e., until after two more general elections were likely to have taken place) but the Nationalists refused to agree to permanent Partition of Ireland . Historian George Dangerfield has argued that the multiplicity of crises in 1910 to 1914, political and industrial, so weakened
3108-599: The Irish Home Government Association . In November 1873, under the chairmanship of William Shaw , it reconstituted itself as the Home Rule League . The League's goal was limited self-government for Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. In the 1874 general election , League-affiliated candidates won 53 seats in Parliament. Butt died in 1879. In 1880, a radical young Protestant landowner, Charles Stewart Parnell became chairman, and in
3219-661: The Irish Nationalists . Although the Lords now passed the budget, the government wished to curtail their power to block legislation. Asquith was required by King George V to fight a second general election in December 1910 (whose result was little changed from that in January) before he agreed, if necessary, to create hundreds of Liberals peers. Faced with that threat, the Lords voted to give up their veto power and allowed
3330-621: The Irish Parliamentary Party . These organisations campaigned for home rule in the British House of Commons . Under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell , the movement came close to success when the Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone introduced the First Home Rule Bill in 1886, but the bill was defeated in the House of Commons after a split in the Liberal Party. After Parnell's death, Gladstone introduced
3441-517: The Labour Party not to come till 1906, many trade unions allied themselves with the Liberals. In areas with working class majorities, in particular coal-mining areas, Lib-Lab candidates were popular, and they received sponsorship and endorsement from trade unions . In the first election after the Act was passed (1885), thirteen were elected, up from two in 1874. The Third Reform Act also facilitated
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3552-639: The Liberal Party in 1989. The Liberals were a coalition with diverse positions on major issues and no unified national policy. This made them repeatedly liable to deep splits, such as that of the Liberal Unionists in 1886 (they eventually joined the Conservative Party); the faction of labour union members that joined the new Labour Party ; the split between factions led by Asquith and that led by Lloyd George in 1918–1922 ; and
3663-674: The Second Home Rule Bill in 1893; it passed the Commons but was defeated in the House of Lords . After the removal of the Lords' veto in 1911 , the Third Home Rule Bill was introduced in 1912, leading to the Home Rule Crisis . Shortly after the outbreak of World War I it was enacted, but implementation was suspended until the conclusion of the war. Following the Easter Rising of 1916, particularly
3774-598: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . Throughout the 19th century, Irish opposition to the Union was strong, occasionally erupting in violent insurrection. In the 1830s and 1840s, attempts had been made under the leadership of Daniel O'Connell and his Repeal Association to repeal the Act of Union and restore the Kingdom of Ireland , without breaking the monarchical connection with Great Britain (i.e., personal union ). The movement collapsed when O'Connell called off
3885-596: The arrests and executions that followed it , public support shifted from the Home Rule movement to the more radical Sinn Féin party. In the 1918 General Election the Irish Parliamentary Party suffered a crushing defeat with only a handful of MPs surviving, effectively dealing a death blow to the Home Rule movement. The elected Sinn Féin MPs were not content merely with home rule within the framework of
3996-533: The 103 Irish seats; another Home Rule MP was elected for Liverpool Scotland . Two attempts were made by Liberals under British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone to enact home rule bills. Gladstone, impressed by Parnell, had become personally committed to granting Irish home rule in 1885. With a three-hour Irish Home Rule speech Gladstone beseeched parliament to pass the Government of Ireland Bill 1886 , and grant home rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to do so one day in humiliation. The bill
4107-459: The 1890s "became Conservative in all but name." The government could force the unwilling king to create new Liberal peers, and that threat did prove decisive in the battle for dominance of Commons over Lords in 1911. The late nineteenth century saw the emergence of New Liberalism within the Liberal Party, which advocated state intervention as a means of guaranteeing freedom and removing obstacles to it such as poverty and unemployment. The policies of
4218-489: The 1906 election; they had only 40 in 1924. Their share of the popular vote plunged from 49% to 18%. The Labour Party absorbed most of the ex-Liberal voters and then became the Conservatives' main rival. By the 1950s, the party had won as few as six seats at general elections. Apart from a few notable by-election victories, its fortunes did not improve significantly until it formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance with
4329-737: The Act of Union, and in 1891 formed the Irish Unionist Alliance to oppose home rule. The term "Home Rule" ( Irish : Rialtas Dúchais ), first used in the 1860s, meant an Irish legislature with responsibility for domestic affairs. It was variously interpreted, from the 1870s was seen to be part of a federal system for the United Kingdom: a domestic Parliament for Ireland while the Imperial Parliament at Westminster would continue to have responsibility for Imperial affairs. The Republican concept as represented by
4440-556: The Boers; near-socialists and laissez-faire classical liberals ; suffragettes and opponents of women's suffrage ; antiwar elements and supporters of the military alliance with France . Nonconformists – Protestants outside the Anglican fold – were a powerful element, dedicated to opposing the established church in terms of education and taxation. However, the non-conformists were losing support amid society at large and played
4551-467: The Conservatives were in power for ten years. The significant Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 (following the English Act of 1888) introduced for the first time the enfranchisement of local electors, bringing about a system of localised home rule in many areas. In the 1906 general election the Liberals were returned with an overall majority, but Irish Home Rule was not on their agenda until after
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4662-468: The Conservatives. The 1906 general election also represented a shift to the left by the Liberal Party. According to Rosemary Rees, almost half of the Liberal MPs elected in 1906 were supportive of the 'New Liberalism' (which advocated government action to improve people's lives), ) while claims were made that "five-sixths of the Liberal party are left wing." Other historians, however, have questioned
4773-646: The Exchequer, Edward Grey at the Foreign Office, Richard Burdon Haldane at the War Office and David Lloyd George at the Board of Trade. Campbell-Bannerman retired in 1908 and died soon after. He was succeeded by Asquith, who stepped up the government's radicalism. Lloyd George succeeded Asquith at the Exchequer and was in turn succeeded at the Board of Trade by Winston Churchill , a recent defector from
4884-524: The Fourth Bill, enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1920 established two separate Home Rule territories in Ireland, of which the one was implemented by the Parliament of Northern Ireland , but the second Parliament of Southern Ireland was not implemented in the rest of Ireland. The bills were: In 1920 the unionist peer Lord Monteagle of Brandon proposed his own Dominion of Ireland Bill in
4995-522: The Government has not dared to challenge the nation to rise above itself, is one among many signs. [...] The war is, in fact, not being taken seriously. [...] How can any slacker be blamed when the Government itself is slack. Asquith's Liberal government was brought down in May 1915 , due in particular to a crisis in inadequate artillery shell production and the protest resignation of Admiral Fisher over
5106-459: The House of Lords, at the same time as the Government bill was passing through the house. This bill would have given a united Ireland extensive home rule over all domestic matters as a dominion within the empire, with foreign affairs and defence remaining the responsibility of the Westminster government. Lord Monteagle's bill was defeated at second reading. Following the 1895 general election,
5217-406: The Liberal Party. In foreign policy, Gladstone was in general against foreign entanglements, but he did not resist the realities of imperialism. For example, he ordered the occupation of Egypt by British forces in the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War . His goal was to create a European order based on co-operation rather than conflict and on mutual trust instead of rivalry and suspicion; the rule of law
5328-647: The Liberal coalition before the war broke out that it marked the Strange Death of Liberal England . However, most historians date the collapse to the crisis of the First World War. The Liberal Party might have survived a short war, but the totality of the Great War called for measures that the Party had long rejected. The result was the permanent destruction of the ability of the Liberal Party to lead
5439-569: The New Liberalism are now known as social liberalism . The New Liberals included intellectuals like L. T. Hobhouse , and John A. Hobson . They saw individual liberty as something achievable only under favourable social and economic circumstances. In their view, the poverty, squalor, and ignorance in which many people lived made it impossible for freedom and individuality to flourish. New Liberals believed that these conditions could be ameliorated only through collective action coordinated by
5550-556: The Party and into a third party called Liberal Unionism on the Irish issue. It collaborated with and eventually merged into the Conservative party. The Gladstonian liberals in 1891 adopted The Newcastle Programme that included home rule for Ireland, disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales , tighter controls on the sale of liquor , major extension of factory regulation and various democratic political reforms. The Programme had
5661-407: The United Kingdom during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were intended to grant self-government and national autonomy to the whole of Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and reverse parts of the Acts of Union 1800 . Of the two that passed the Parliament of the United Kingdom the Third Bill, enacted as the Government of Ireland Act 1914 and then suspended, while
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#17327800125875772-405: The United Kingdom; they instead set up a revolutionary legislature, Dáil Éireann , and declared Ireland an independent republic. Britain passed a Fourth Home Rule Bill, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 , aimed at creating separate parliaments for Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland . The former was established in 1921, and the territory continues to this day as part of the United Kingdom, but
5883-435: The Whigs returned to power under Grey in 1830 and carried the First Reform Act in 1832. The Reform Act was the climax of Whiggism, but it also brought about the Whigs' demise. The admission of the middle classes to the franchise and to the House of Commons led eventually to the development of a systematic middle-class liberalism and the end of Whiggery, although for many years reforming aristocrats held senior positions in
5994-412: The aftermath of the Rising, including the rushed executions of its leaders by General Maxwell , led to a rise in popularity for an Irish republican movement named Sinn Féin , a small separatist party taken over by the survivors of the Easter Rising. Britain made two futile attempts to implement Home Rule, both of which failed because of Ulster unionists' protesting against its proposed implementation for
6105-402: The anti-Lloyd George Liberals were called Asquithian Liberals, Wee Free Liberals or Independent Liberals . Lloyd George was increasingly under the influence of the rejuvenated Conservative party who numerically dominated the coalition. In 1922, the Conservative backbenchers rebelled against the continuation of the coalition, citing, in particular, Lloyd George's plan for war with Turkey in
6216-445: The aristocracy was divided between Conservatives and Liberals. However, when Gladstone committed to home rule for Ireland, Britain's upper classes largely abandoned the Liberal party, giving the Conservatives a large permanent majority in the House of Lords. Following the Queen, High Society in London largely ostracized home rulers and Liberal clubs were badly split. Joseph Chamberlain took a major element of upper-class supporters out of
6327-416: The bill also. Among the Liberal rank and file, several Gladstonian candidates disowned the bill, reflecting fears at the constituency level that the interests of the working people were being sacrificed to finance a costly rescue operation for the landed élite. Further, Home Rule had not been promised in the Liberals' election manifesto, and so the impression was given that Gladstone was buying Irish support in
6438-403: The capitalist market, this legislation nevertheless, marked a significant shift in Liberal approaches to the state and social reform, approaches that later governments would slowly expand and that would grow into the welfare state after the Second World War. What was new in these reforms was the underlying assumption that the state could be a positive force, that the measure of individual freedom...
6549-479: The citizenship of their native land. The new Liberalism, while pursuing this great political ideal with unflinching energy, devotes a part of its endeavour also to the removing of the immediate causes of discontent. It is true that man cannot live by bread alone. It is equally true that a man cannot live without bread. The Liberals languished in opposition for a decade while the coalition of Salisbury and Chamberlain held power. The 1890s were marred by infighting between
6660-429: The consequences of the Third Reform Act (1884) was the giving of the vote to many Irish Catholics . In the 1885 general election the Irish Parliamentary Party held the balance of power in the House of Commons and demanded Irish Home Rule as the price of support for a continued Gladstone ministry. Gladstone personally supported Home Rule, but a strong Liberal Unionist faction led by Joseph Chamberlain , along with
6771-417: The demise of the Whig old guard; in two-member constituencies, it was common to pair a Whig and a radical under the Liberal banner. After the Third Reform Act, fewer former Whigs were selected as candidates. A broad range of interventionist reforms were introduced by the 1892–1895 Liberal government. Amongst other measures, standards of accommodation and of teaching in schools were improved, factory inspection
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#17327800125876882-406: The detriment of Ireland's economic progress, a threat to their cultural identity as both British and Irish and possible discrimination against them as a religious minority. In England the Liberal Party under William Ewart Gladstone was fully committed to introducing Home Rule whereas the Conservatives tried to alleviate any need for it through "constructive unionism". This was chiefly embodied by
6993-443: The disastrous Gallipoli Campaign against Turkey. Reluctant to face doom in an election, Asquith formed a new coalition government on 25 May, with the majority of the new cabinet coming from his own Liberal party and the Unionist (Conservative) party , along with a token Labour representation. The new government lasted a year and a half and was the last time Liberals controlled the government. The analysis of historian A. J. P. Taylor
7104-574: The end of a political era, which resulted in a swing of public opinion towards Sinn Féin and physical force separatism . Interest in Home Rule began to fade as a result. After the end of the war in November 1918 Sinn Féin secured a majority of 73 Irish seats in the general election , with 25 of these seats taken uncontested. The IPP was decimated, falling to only six seats; it disbanded soon afterward. In January 1919 twenty-seven Sinn Féin MPs assembled in Dublin and proclaimed themselves unilaterally as an independent parliament of an Irish Republic . This
7215-431: The extent to which the Liberal Party experienced a leftward shift; according to Robert C. Self however, only between 50 and 60 Liberal MPs out of the 400 in the parliamentary party after 1906 were Social Radicals, with a core of 20 to 30. Nevertheless, important junior offices were held in the cabinet by what Duncan Tanner has termed "genuine New Liberals, Centrist reformers, and Fabian collectivists," and much legislation
7326-493: The field. The 1915 coalition fell apart at the end of 1916, when the Conservatives withdrew their support from Asquith and gave it instead to Lloyd George, who became prime minister at the head of a new coalition largely made up of Conservatives. Asquith and his followers moved to the opposition benches in Parliament and the Liberal Party was deeply split once again. Lloyd George remained a Liberal all his life, but he abandoned many standard Liberal principles in his crusade to win
7437-442: The first year. Since the Liberals ran the war without consulting the Conservatives, there were heavy partisan attacks. However, even Liberal commentators were dismayed by the lack of energy at the top. At the time, public opinion was intensely hostile, both in the media and in the street, against any young man in civilian garb and labeled as a slacker. The leading Liberal newspaper, the Manchester Guardian complained: The fact that
7548-412: The foundation of the National Liberal Federation in 1877. The philosopher John Stuart Mill was also a Liberal MP from 1865 to 1868. For the next 30 years, Gladstone and Liberalism were synonymous. William Gladstone served as prime minister four times (1868–74, 1880–85, 1886, and 1892–94). His financial policies, based on the notion of balanced budgets , low taxes and laissez-faire , were suited to
7659-518: The future of the party, says historian Trevor Wilson, was its repudiation by ideological Liberals, who decided sadly that it no longer represented their principles. Finally, the presence of the vigorous new Labour Party on the left gave a new home to voters disenchanted with the Liberal performance. The last majority Liberal Government in Britain was elected in 1906. The years preceding the First World War were marked by worker strikes and civil unrest and saw many violent confrontations between civilians and
7770-402: The head of a moderate Liberal rump, but in 1901 he delivered a speech on the government's "methods of barbarism" in South Africa that pulled him further to the left and nearly tore the party in two. The party was saved after Salisbury's retirement in 1902 when his successor, Arthur Balfour , pushed a series of unpopular initiatives such as the Education Act 1902 and Joseph Chamberlain called for
7881-410: The incumbent Conservative government. This meeting was held at the Willis' rooms in London on 6 June 1859. This led to Palmerston's second government. However, the Whig-Radical amalgam could not become a true modern political party while it was dominated by aristocrats and it was not until the departure of the "Two Terrible Old Men", Russell and Palmerston, that Gladstone could become the first leader of
7992-538: The interests of the unionist and republican factions through a " power sharing " agreement. Devolution Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.132 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 936375151 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:46:52 GMT Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party
8103-492: The issue of free trade. This allowed ministries led by Russell, Palmerston and the Peelite Lord Aberdeen to hold office for most of the 1850s and 1860s. A leading Peelite was William Gladstone, who was a reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer in most of these governments. The formal foundation of the Liberal Party is traditionally traced to 1859 when the remaining Peelites, Radicals and Whigs agreed to vote down
8214-455: The last of the Whigs, Hartington, opposed it. The Irish Home Rule bill proposed to offer all owners of Irish land a chance to sell to the state at a price equal to 20 years' purchase of the rents and allowing tenants to purchase the land. Irish nationalist reaction was mixed, Unionist opinion was hostile, and the election addresses during the 1886 election revealed English radicals to be against
8325-785: The latter never functioned. Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the Anglo-Irish War , twenty-six of Ireland's thirty-two counties became, in December 1922, the Irish Free State , a dominion within the British Empire which later evolved into the present Republic of Ireland . Under the Act of Union 1800 , the separate Kingdoms of Ireland and Great Britain were merged on 1 January 1801 to form
8436-471: The modern Liberal Party. This was brought about by Palmerston's death in 1865 and Russell's retirement in 1868. After a brief Conservative government (during which the Second Reform Act was passed by agreement between the parties), Gladstone won a huge victory at the 1868 election and formed the first Liberal government. The establishment of the party as a national membership organisation came with
8547-791: The new Free State, which was a foregone conclusion. The Irish Civil War (1922–1923) followed. The Parliament of Northern Ireland continued in operation until 30 March 1972, when it was suspended in favour of direct rule by the Northern Ireland Office during The Troubles . It was subsequently abolished under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 . Various versions of the Northern Ireland Assembly re-established home rule in 1973–74, 1982–86, intermittently from 1998 to 2002, and from 2007 onward. The Assembly attempts to balance
8658-401: The new Liberal leader Lord Rosebery adopted the policy of promising Salisbury that the majority vote of English MPs would have a veto on any future Irish Home Rule Bills. The Nationalist movement divided in the 1890s. The Liberals lost the 1895 general election and their Conservative opponents remained in power until 1905. The four Irish Home Rule bills introduced in the House of Commons of
8769-659: The newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. At the 1983 general election , the Alliance won over a quarter of the vote, but won only 23 of the 650 seats it contested. At the 1987 general election , its share of the vote fell below 23% and the Liberals and the SDP merged in 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD), who the following year were renamed the Liberal Democrats . A splinter group reconstituted
8880-594: The participation of Ireland in the First World War , the southern Irish Volunteers split into the larger National Volunteers and followed Redmond's call to support the Allied war effort to ensure the future implementation of Home Rule by voluntarily enlisting in Irish regiments of the 10th (Irish) Division or the 16th (Irish) Division of Kitchener's New Service Army . The men of the Ulster Volunteers joined
8991-545: The party formed a Pro-Boer faction that denounced the conflict and called for an immediate end to hostilities. Quickly rising to prominence among the Pro-Boers was David Lloyd George, a relatively new MP and a master of rhetoric, who took advantage of having a national stage to speak out on a controversial issue to make his name in the party. Harcourt and Morley also sided with this group, though with slightly different aims. Campbell-Bannerman tried to keep these forces together at
9102-447: The party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election . Under prime ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1905–1908) and H. H. Asquith (1908–1916), the Liberal Party passed reforms that created a basic welfare state . Although Asquith was the party leader , its dominant figure was David Lloyd George . Asquith was overwhelmed by his wartime role as prime minister and Lloyd George led
9213-408: The party. In the years after Grey's retirement, the party was led first by Lord Melbourne , a fairly traditional Whig, and then by Lord John Russell , the son of a Duke but a crusading radical, and by Lord Palmerston , a renegade Irish Tory and essentially a conservative , although capable of radical gestures. As early as 1839, Russell had adopted the name of "Liberals", but in reality, his party
9324-469: The passage of the Parliament Act 1911 . As the price of Irish support, Asquith was now forced to introduce a third Home Rule bill in 1912. Since the House of Lords no longer had the power to block the bill, but only to delay it for two years, it was due to become law in 1914. The Unionist Ulster Volunteers , led by Sir Edward Carson , launched a campaign of opposition that included the threat of
9435-553: The passing acts of parliament and enacting ministerial decisions viewed as addressing Ireland's problems and political demands during Conservative periods of government such as Balfour 's decision as Chief Secretary for Ireland to create the Congested Districts Board , his earlier push for the 1885 Purchase of Land Act and the 1887 Land Law (Ireland) Act which expanded the Liberal's 1881 loan programme for small farmers to purchase lands (the programme overall
9546-691: The police and armed forces. Other issues of the period included women's suffrage and the Irish Home Rule movement. After the carnage of 1914–1918, the democratic reforms of the Representation of the People Act 1918 instantly tripled the number of people entitled to vote in Britain from seven to twenty-one million. The Labour Party benefited most from this huge change in the electorate, forming its first minority government in 1924 . In
9657-550: The reign of Charles II and the early 19th century Radicals . The Whigs were in favour of reducing the power of the Crown and increasing the power of Parliament . Although their motives in this were originally to gain more power for themselves, the more idealistic Whigs gradually came to support an expansion of democracy for its own sake. The great figures of reformist Whiggery were Charles James Fox (died 1806) and his disciple and successor Earl Grey . After decades in opposition,
9768-653: The reorganization of the judiciary in the Judicature Act . Regarding Ireland, the major Liberal achievements were land reform, where he ended centuries of landlord oppression , and the disestablishment of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland through the Irish Church Act 1869 . In the 1874 general election , Gladstone was defeated by the Conservatives under Benjamin Disraeli during a sharp economic recession. He formally resigned as Liberal leader and
9879-415: The second 1910 general election when the nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party under its leader John Redmond held the balance of power in the House of Commons. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith came to an understanding with Redmond, that if he supported his move to break the power of the Lords, Asquith would then in return introduce a new Home Rule Bill. The Parliament Act 1911 forced the Lords to agree to
9990-404: The third quarter of the century drew to a close, the essential bastions of Victorianism still held firm: respectability; a government of aristocrats and gentlemen now influenced not only by middle-class merchants and manufacturers but also by industrious working people; a prosperity that seemed to rest largely on the tenets of laissez-faire economics ; and a Britannia that ruled the waves and many
10101-465: The three principal successors to Gladstone, party leader William Harcourt , former prime minister Lord Rosebery , and Gladstone's personal secretary, John Morley . This intrigue finally led Harcourt and Morley to resign their positions in 1898 as they continued to be at loggerheads with Rosebery over Irish home rule and issues relating to imperialism. Replacing Harcourt as party leader was Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman . Harcourt's resignation briefly muted
10212-536: The turmoil in the party, but the beginning of the Second Boer War soon nearly broke the party apart, with Rosebery and a circle of supporters including important future Liberal figures H. H. Asquith , Edward Grey and Richard Burdon Haldane forming a clique dubbed the Liberal Imperialists that supported the government in the prosecution of the war. On the other side, more radical members of
10323-673: The unionists, were instrumental in organising the Ulster Covenant against the "coercion of Ulster", at which time Carson reviewed Orange and Unionist volunteers in various parts of Ulster. These were united into a single body known as the Ulster Volunteers at the start of 1912. This was followed in the south by the formation of the Irish Volunteers to restrain Ulster. Both Nationalists and Republicans, except for
10434-603: The war at all costs. He insisted on strong government controls over business as opposed to the laissez-faire attitudes of traditional Liberals. in 1915–16 he had insisted on conscription of young men into the Army, a position that deeply troubled his old colleagues. That brought him and a few like-minded Liberals into the new coalition on the ground long occupied by Conservatives. There was no more planning for world peace or liberal treatment of Germany, nor discomfit with aggressive and authoritarian measures of state power. More deadly to
10545-474: The wealthy in Britain and radical social welfare programmes to the country's policies. In the Liberal camp, as noted by one study, "the Budget was on the whole enthusiastically received." It was the first budget with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the public. It imposed increased taxes on luxuries, liquor, tobacco, high incomes, and land – taxation that fell heavily on the rich . The new money
10656-700: The whole island of Ireland; first after the Rising and then at the end of the Irish Convention of 1917–1918. With the collapse of the allied front during the German spring offensive and Operation Michael , the British Army had a serious manpower shortage, and the Cabinet agreed on 5 April to enact Home Rule immediately, linked in with a "dual policy" of extending conscription to Ireland . This signalled
10767-546: Was a loose coalition of Whigs in the House of Lords and Radicals in the Commons. The leading Radicals were John Bright and Richard Cobden , who represented the manufacturing towns which had gained representation under the Reform Act. They favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England (many Liberals were Nonconformists ), avoidance of war and foreign alliances (which were bad for business) and above all free trade . For
10878-476: Was defeated in the Commons by 30 votes. The Bill led to serious riots in Belfast during the summer and autumn of 1886 in which many were killed, and was the cause of a split in the Liberal Party. The Liberal Unionists allied with Lord Salisbury 's Conservatives on the issue of Home Rule until formally merging in 1912. The defeat of the bill caused Gladstone to lose office. After returning to government after
10989-735: Was ignored by Britain. The Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) ensued. Britain went ahead with its commitment to implement Home Rule by passing a new Fourth Home Rule Bill, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 , largely shaped by the Walter Long Committee which followed findings contained in the report of the Irish Convention. Long, a firm unionist, felt free to shape Home Rule in Unionism's favour, and formalised dividing Ireland (and Ulster ) into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland . The latter never functioned, but
11100-609: Was in response to the Plan of Campaign by Irish MPs), or the later Conservative government's implementation of the Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898 . Former Conservative barrister Isaac Butt was instrumental in fostering links between Constitutional and Revolutionary nationalism through his representation of members of the Fenian Society in court. In May 1870, he established a new moderate nationalist movement,
11211-603: Was made more stringent, and ministers used their powers to increase the wages and reduce the working hours of large numbers of male workers employed by the state. Historian Walter L. Arnstein concludes: Notable as the Gladstonian reforms had been, they had almost all remained within the nineteenth-century Liberal tradition of gradually removing the religious, economic, and political barriers that prevented men of varied creeds and classes from exercising their individual talents in order to improve themselves and their society. As
11322-403: Was moving rapidly toward the newly emerging Labour Party. One uniting element was widespread agreement on the use of politics and Parliament as a device to upgrade and improve society and to reform politics. All Liberals were outraged when Conservatives used their majority in the House of Lords to block reform legislation. In the House of Lords, the Liberals had lost most of their members, who in
11433-443: Was not how much the state left people alone, but whether it gave them the capacity to fill themselves as individuals. Contrasting Old Liberalism with New Liberalism, David Lloyd George noted in a 1908 speech the following: [Old Liberals] used the natural discontent of the people with the poverty and precariousness of the means of subsistence as a motive power to win for them a better, more influential, and more honourable status in
11544-474: Was one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party , in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs , free trade –supporting Peelites , and reformist Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century, it had formed four governments under William Gladstone . Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule ,
11655-511: Was pushed through by the Liberals in government. This included the regulation of working hours, National Insurance and welfare. A political battle erupted over the People's Budget , which was rejected by the House of Lords and for which the government obtained an electoral mandate at the January 1910 election . The election resulted in a hung parliament , with the government left dependent on
11766-622: Was replaced under the Anglo-Irish Treaty by the Irish Free State which later became the Republic of Ireland . The Home Rule Parliament of Northern Ireland came into being in June 1921. At its inauguration, in Belfast City Hall , King George V made a famous appeal drafted by Prime Minister Lloyd George for Anglo-Irish and north–south reconciliation. The Anglo-Irish Treaty had provided for Northern Ireland's Parliament to opt out of
11877-525: Was succeeded by the Marquess of Hartington , but he soon changed his mind and returned to active politics. He strongly disagreed with Disraeli's pro- Ottoman foreign policy and in 1880 he conducted the first outdoor mass-election campaign in Britain, known as the Midlothian campaign . The Liberals won a large majority in the 1880 election . Hartington ceded his place and Gladstone resumed office. Among
11988-476: Was the Elementary Education Act 1870 ( 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75), which provided England with an adequate system of elementary schools for the first time. He also secured the abolition of the purchase of commissions in the British Army and of religious tests for admission to Oxford and Cambridge ; the introduction of the secret ballot in elections; the legalization of trade unions ; and
12099-429: Was the Liberals, not the Conservatives who needed the moral outrage of Belgium to justify going to war, while the Conservatives called for intervention from the start of the crisis on the grounds of realpolitik and the balance of power. However, Lloyd George and Churchill were zealous supporters of the war, and gradually forced the old peace-orientated Liberals out. Asquith was blamed for the poor British performance in
12210-405: Was to be made available for new welfare programmes as well as new battleships. In 1911 Lloyd George succeeded in putting through Parliament his National Insurance Act , making provision for sickness and invalidism, and this was followed by his Unemployment Insurance Act . Historian Peter Weiler argues: Although still partially informed by older Liberal concerns for character, self-reliance, and
12321-440: Was to supplant the reign of force and self-interest. This Gladstonian concept of a harmonious Concert of Europe was opposed to and ultimately defeated by a Bismarckian system of manipulated alliances and antagonisms. As prime minister from 1868 to 1874, Gladstone headed a Liberal Party which was a coalition of Peelites like himself, Whigs and Radicals. He was now a spokesman for "peace, economy and reform". One major achievement
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