Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the early 19th century until the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party (the SDP) to form a new party which would become known as the Liberal Democrats.

Liberal revival

Through the 1950s and into the 1960s the Liberals survived only because a handful of constituencies in rural Scotland and Wales clung to their Liberal traditions, whilst in two English towns, Bolton and Huddersfield local Liberals and Conservatives agreed to each contest only one of the town's two seats. Jo Grimond, for example, who became Liberal leader in 1956, was MP for the remote Orkney and Shetland islands. Under his leadership a Liberal revival began, marked by the famous Orpington by-election of March 1962 which was won by Eric Lubbock, in which the Liberals won a seat in the London suburbs for the first time since 1935. The Liberals became the first of the major British political parties to advocate British membership of the European Economic Community. Grimond also sought an intellectual revival of the party, seeking to position it as a non-socialist radical alternative to the Conservative government of the day. In particular he appealed to the new university students and graduates in the post-war world, appealing to younger voters in a way that many of his recent predecessors had failed to do so, asserting a new strand of Liberalism for the post war world.

Related Topics:
1950s - 1960s - Scotland - Wales - Bolton - Huddersfield - Jo Grimond - 1956 - Orkney - Shetland - Orpington - 1962 - Eric Lubbock - 1935 - European Economic Community

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The postwar middle class suburban generation began to find the Liberals' policies attractive again, and under Grimond and his successor, Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberals regained the status of a serious third force in British politics, polling up to 20% of the vote but unable to break the duopoly of Labour and Conservative and win more than fourteen seats in the Commons. An additional problem was competition in the Liberal heartlands in Scotland and Wales from the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru who both grew as electoral forces from the 1960s onwards.

Related Topics:
Jeremy Thorpe - Scottish National Party - Plaid Cymru - 1960s

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In the February 1974 general election the Conservative government of Edward Heath lost its overall majority. The Liberals now held the balance of power in the Commons. Heath offered Thorpe the Home Office if he would join a coalition government with Heath. Thorpe was personally in favour, but the party insisted on a clear government commitment to introducing proportional representation and a change of Prime Minister. The former was unacceptable to Heath's Cabinet and the latter to Heath personally and so the talks collapsed. Instead a minority Labour government was formed under Harold Wilson but with no formal support from Thorpe. In the October 1974 general election the Liberals slipped back slightly and the Labour government won a very slender majority. Thorpe was subsequently forced to resign in a sordid sex scandal. The party's new leader, David Steel negotiated the Lib-Lab Pact with the new Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, whereby the Liberals would support the government in crucial votes in exchange for some influence over policy. This pact lasted from 1977-1978 but proved relatively fruitless as the Liberals' key demand of proportional representation was anathema to most Labour MPs whilst the contacts between Liberal spokespersons and Labour ministers often proved detrimental, such as between finance spokesperson John Pardoe and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey who did not get on at all.

Related Topics:
February 1974 general election - Edward Heath - Home Office - Proportional representation - Harold Wilson - October 1974 general election - David Steel - Lib-Lab Pact - Jim Callaghan - 1977 - 1978 - John Pardoe - Chancellor of the Exchequer - Denis Healey

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When the Labour government fell in 1979, the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher won a landslide victory which pushed the Liberals back into the margins. In 1981 defectors from the moderate wing of the Labour Party, led by former Cabinet ministers Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Shirley Williams, founded the Social Democratic Party. The two parties fought the 1983 and 1987 general elections jointly as the SDP-Liberal Alliance. During 1982 and 1983, at the depths of Labour's fortunes under Michael Foot, there was much talk of the Alliance becoming the dominant party of the left and even of Jenkins becoming Prime Minister. In fact, while the Alliance won over 20% of the vote each time, it never made the hoped-for breakthrough in terms of parliamentary seats.

Related Topics:
1979 - Margaret Thatcher - A landslide victory - 1981 - Roy Jenkins - David Owen - Shirley Williams - Social Democratic Party - 1983 - 1987 - SDP-Liberal Alliance - 1982 - 1983

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In 1988 the two parties merged to create (after a number of name changes) the Liberal Democrats. Over two-thirds of the members, and all the serving MPs, of the Liberal Party joined this party, led first by Steel and later by Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy. With the fading away of the ex-Labour element after 1992, this party is seen by many continuation of the old Liberal Party under a new name, and some of its MPs and many of its rank-and-file continue to refer to themselves simply as Liberals. However others argue that the Liberal Democrats do not always follow traditional Liberal policies, whilst in terms of personalities they argue that both Paddy Ashdown (who was closer to the SDP than the Liberals on several matters) and Charles Kennedy (who was an SDP not a Liberal MP) are not old-style Liberals. Although the Liberal Democrats retain both the ethos and policies of the old Liberals in local and regional government and continue to be seen as centrists, in Parliament they are seen as to the left of the Labour Party. This is primarily due to Labour's move to the right under Tony Blair, but is also the result of the Lib Dems under Charles Kennedy more strongly supporting the public sector against privatisation, and maintaining traditional Liberal opposition to militarism in the face of Labour and Conservative support for the War in Iraq.

Related Topics:
1988 - Liberal Democrats - Paddy Ashdown - Charles Kennedy - 1992 - Tony Blair - Public sector - Privatisation - Militarism - Iraq

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