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Post by birdseye on Feb 20, 2022 17:11:38 GMT
From 1680 to 1850 the liberals / whigs were the alternative to the conservatives and even as recently as the early 1900s they were a strong presence. Now they are a minor factor in politics if one at all. Why is this ? Is it all down to the growth of Socialism in the early 1900s? Why do we Brits only ever have two dominant parties ?
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Feb 20, 2022 19:52:58 GMT
Hi birdseye. Your dates are a bit off, as the Liberals remained one of the two main parties up to the first world war, winning a landslide victory in 1906 and remaining the governing party from 1910-16 with Labour and Irish National support, before entering a war-time coalition with the Conservatives. Their decline as a party only really starts after the first world war and effectively becomes complete at the 1924 election when they collapsed from 158 seats to 44 and Labour clearly became the main opposition to the Conservatives.
The reasons for the Liberal collapse are complex and disputed, but there were several factors at work. To mention a few:
The Liberal Party was badly split in that period between the followers of David Lloyd George and Herbert Asquith. Asquith had been PM 1908-16 but was deposed by Lloyd George on the grounds that he wasn't prosecuting the war vigorously enough. It is fair to say he didn't take this well. Lloyd-George become PM and leader of the WWI coalition government and after the war was over tried to keep it going. This split the Liberals into pro and anti coalition factions led by Lloyd George and Asquith respectively. The Conservatives then pulled the plug on the coalition and ruled alone. The two wings of the Liberal party patched together a truce to fight the 1923 election on a united front, but it was not a happy ship with different wings of the Liberal party even standing candidates against each other. Later in the 1930s the Liberals split again - this time three ways (a Lloyd George faction, an official Liberal group and the National Liberals, who were ultimately absorbed into the Conservative Party). All this infighting did not do them any favours and certainly contributed to their decline.
Another factor was obviously the rise of organised working class power through the trade union movement, which in turn spawned the Labour Party to represent the interests of workers in parliament. This was only tangentially to do with socialism as a political philosophy. Although many, perhaps most, people active in the Labour movement would have called themselves socialists, what they meant by that varied enormously. Pre-WWI Labour was content to fight and win only a minority of seats (mostly in coal mining areas) and looked to working with the Liberals to secure the changes they wanted. However, the voting reform in 1918 that extended the vote to all men over 21 was a game changer. A huge number of unskilled workers who had previously not been able to vote now could and represented a large potential pool of Labour votes. It took a while to get organised, but given the travails and unreliability of the Liberals it made sense for Labour to run more candidates, and post the 1924 Liberal collapse, Labour was clearly the second main party and hence the natural home of anti-conservative votes. In still took until 1945 to actually win a majority though.
Another point worth noting is that talented Liberal politicians saw which way the wind was blowing and jumped ship to either Conservative or Labour according to taste, thus depriving the Liberals of leadership. For example Churchill defected back to the Conservatives in 1924. Tony Benn's father William Wedgwood Benn, had been a Liberal MP, but ended up in Labour - thus giving us the start of a Labour dynasty. Two of Lloyd George's children who were also MPs illustrate this - Megan eventually sitting as a Labour MP, Gwilym serving in a Tory cabinet. Liberal thought was therefore more influential than the collapse of the party might suggest. It is worth remembering that John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge, key players in the creation of the 1945-79 social democratic state were both Liberals.
As to the two party point, that is largely a product of First Past the Post voting. Nor is it necessarily an absolute, as the SNP have demonstrated in Scotland recently (and the Irish National Party did in an earlier era). A smaller party that concentrates its vote geographically gets representation. One that spreads its vote widely fails- for a long time this was a problem for the Liberals, although they finally learned how to target seats in the 1997-2010 period, until Nick Clegg threw it all away.
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Post by birdseye on Feb 21, 2022 19:55:45 GMT
Interesting comment. I agree that " the voting reform in 1918 that extended the vote to all men over 21 was a game changer" since I guess that before that happened, there really were two "middle class" parties with not dissimilar ideas and a working class that didnt vote and therefore didnt matter politically.
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Feb 21, 2022 22:37:48 GMT
Yes, as well as all men, some women over 30 got the vote in 1918, so the electorate increased from 7,709,981 in December 1910 (the last election before WWI) to 21,392,220 in 1918 - 2.77 times as many voters. Obviously a key factor. But in that 1918 election the various Liberal factors still polled 27.3% of the vote, compared to 21.4% for Labour, so it was not a foregone conclusion that Labour would replace the Liberals. I do think the infighting within the Liberal Party also played a role. For the record these are the percentages of the vote for the combined Liberal factions and Labour/ILP in the General Elections of the period.
1918 Lib (split 3 ways) 27.3%, Lab 21.4% MPs Lib 172, Lab 62
1922 Lib (split 2 ways) 28.8%, Lab 29.7% Lib 115, Lab 142
1923 Lib (united) 29.7%, Lab 30.7% Lib 158, Lab 191
1924 Lib (united) 18.4%, Lab 33.3% Lib 44, Lab 151
1929 Lib (united) 23.6%, Lab 37.1% Lib 59, Lab 287
1931 Lib (split 3 ways) 10.7%, Lab 30.8% Lib 71, Lab 52 (35 of the Lib MPs were National Liberals allied to the Conservatives)
1935 Lib (split 2 ways) 10.5%, Lab 38.7% Lib 54, Lab 158 (33 of the Lib MPs were National Liberals)
So it took a while for Labour to become the clear alternative.
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Post by birdseye on Feb 22, 2022 16:37:46 GMT
Interesting but I dont think that infighting tells the underlying story. For example in 24 and 29 the libs did badly even united, and the spread of the Labour vote from 1918 when the voting changed to the exlection just 4 years later and post war shows IMO a sharp change in sentiment. After all, both Libs and Tories could never be described as the workers parties and the period post WW1 and post the Russian revolution effectivel brought in a rise in blue collar power and belief.The communist party was founded in 1920 with fairly wide support and there was a general strike in 26. What we see IMO is the rise of worker power rather than decline due to Liberal infighting.
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pjw1961
Member
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Posts: 8,614
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Post by pjw1961 on Feb 22, 2022 18:22:51 GMT
I would agree with you to a large extent; my point merely being that the Liberal Party choosing to self-destruct at the same time helped smooth the way for Labour.
Where I would disagree is the extent of radical working class consciousness in the UK, which was always quite low. There were pockets of it to be sure, the mining areas in particular, but Communism never got much of a foothold in his country and the Labour Party specifically disavowed all forms of Marxism (the Communist Party tried to affiliate to Labour in the 1920's but was blocked). Many Labour leaders were very actively anti-Communist, notably Ernest Bevin who played a leading role in founding NATO. So the Labour Party was always broadly social democratic and so a comfortable home for the more radical ex-Liberals and Liberal voters (the Foot family, of whom Michael Foot was the most famous, would be another example). The more conservatively minded Liberals naturally gravitated to the Conservative Party and helped ensure it remained the dominant UK party, while also making it more moderate (until Margaret Thatcher came along and changed that party's philosophy).
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Post by mattbewilson on Sept 23, 2022 22:37:49 GMT
I would agree with you to a large extent; my point merely being that the Liberal Party choosing to self-destruct at the same time helped smooth the way for Labour. Where I would disagree is the extent of radical working class consciousness in the UK, which was always quite low. There were pockets of it to be sure, the mining areas in particular, but Communism never got much of a foothold in his country and the Labour Party specifically disavowed all forms of Marxism (the Communist Party tried to affiliate to Labour in the 1920's but was blocked). Many Labour leaders were very actively anti-Communist, notably Ernest Bevin who played a leading role in founding NATO. So the Labour Party was always broadly social democratic and so a comfortable home for the more radical ex-Liberals and Liberal voters (the Foot family, of whom Michael Foot was the most famous, would be another example). The more conservatively minded Liberals naturally gravitated to the Conservative Party and helped ensure it remained the dominant UK party, while also making it more moderate (until Margaret Thatcher came along and changed that party's philosophy). though worth saying that many leading voices in the labour party advocated for affiliation with the communists. Despite both being kicked out for it initially; Nye Bevan and Stafford Cripps were readmitted and went on to be the founder of the NHS and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ironically despite Clause 4 being changed to move away from the left leaning commitments of the party. Clause 4 was probably the first moment when labour distinguished itself as a social democratic party. Many people view it as the first commitment to socialism but it was proposed by the modernisers of the time Beatrice and Sydney Webb to avoid off set support for the revolution in Russia |
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Post by birdseye on Sept 26, 2022 16:26:29 GMT
Was it? Or was it to copy the nationalisation in the 1917 revolution in Russia and an inherent part of socialism / Marxism.Its always seemed to me that the Labour movement, as a political movement with a belief in socialism, would always try to implement socialist / communist policies as a way to change society . To a degree they have succeeded and listening to todays conference speeches there will be more to come when inevitably they get into government. The Tories claim to votes has been based until recently on "steady as she goes". This plays to the natural conservatism of the electorate and their mistrust of zealots of any religion, god based or socialist.
The result in my lifetime has been an oscillation around the centre with lurches to either extreme being punished.
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Post by leftieliberal on Sept 29, 2022 16:18:08 GMT
though worth saying that many leading voices in the labour party advocated for affiliation with the communists. Despite both being kicked out for it initially; Nye Bevan and Stafford Cripps were readmitted and went on to be the founder of the NHS and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ironically despite Clause 4 being changed to move away from the left leaning commitments of the party. Clause 4 was probably the first moment when labour distinguished itself as a social democratic party. Many people view it as the first commitment to socialism but it was proposed by the modernisers of the time Beatrice and Sydney Webb to avoid off set support for the revolution in Russia Fabian Essays in Socialism (edited by George Bernard Shaw) is still a good read: archive.org/details/essaysinsofabian00fabirich/page/iv/mode/2upIt should be available as an e-book on Project Gutenberg within the next few weeks. |
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