Liberal—Labour Party Relationships, 1929–39

Abstract

The result of the 1929 general election opened the theoretical possibility of joint action between the Liberal and Labour parties which might result in their eventual fusion into a single progressive party. The election demonstrated to Labour the need to appeal to an electorate beyond that of the working class1 which an alliance with the Liberal party might facilitate in future contests. The third-party status of the Liberal party was confirmed at this election, which suggested the only route back to power lay through cooperation with another political party. However, there were serious reservations in both parties to prevent such a course of action being pursued at that time. Some in the Liberal party could not contemplate merger with Labour on the grounds that the latter was a socialist party which was ‘dominated, financed, and in effect controlled, by the trade unions’ and acted as a corrupting force in British political life by abusing power in local government and by making lavish promises which were incapable of fulfilment at general election campaigns.2 Labour similarly saw no need to fuse with the Liberal party which it viewed as a rival on the left of the political spectrum. Consequently, the nature of the problem facing the Liberal party after 1929 was tactical rather than strategic — whether to support a Conservative or Labour administration. When Baldwin resigned from Office the Liberal party was not required (as it had been in 1924) to ‘put Labour in’, but this did not prevent internal divisions and defections to both of the other parties.KeywordsFree TradeProportional RepresentationLabour GovernmentLabour PartyLiberal PartyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.