Liberal Party (UK)

In British politics, the Liberal Party evolved from the Whig Party in the years following the Representation of the People Act 1832 (the "Great Reform Act"). One result of Reform's wider enfranchisement was an increase in the number of Whig members taking seats in the House of Commons. These newcomers tended to be businessmen who favoured free trade and opposed the protectionist policies of the Tory Party. The Whig leader, Lord John Russell, had begun using the name Liberal Party by the end of the 1830s and it is widely, though not universally, accepted that his 1846 ministry was Britain's first Liberal government. Russell was able to form his administration after the free trade issue, specifically the proposed repeal of the Corn Laws, decisively split the Tories into two factions. The free trade supporters, known as the Peelites, "crossed the floor" (i.e., of the Commons) and joined forces with the Liberals.

The Liberals held power for much of the 1850s and 1860s under Russell, Lord Palmerston and Lord Aberdeen. In 1868, the party's new leader William Gladstone won the general election by a majority of 116 seats (387–271) over Benjamin Disraeli's Tories. Gladstone formed four administrations between 1868 and 1894; he was Prime Minister for a total of twelve years. Gladstone enlarged the electorate, which made him very popular among the working class, and introduced reforms in education, trade unions, the judiciary and the armed forces.

Gladstone's eventual undoing was the thorny subject of Irish Home Rule, which in 1886 caused a split in the Liberals akin to the Peelite split forty years earlier. This time, it was the Conservatives who welcomed disaffected Liberal Unionists. There were ten years of Tory rule from 1895 to 1905 under Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour. This ended following another Tory split over free trade. Among the Conservative rebels was Winston Churchill who crossed the floor in May 1904. Balfour was succeeded by Henry Campbell-Bannerman who led the Liberals to a landslide victory in January 1906. Ill health caused Campbell-Bannerman's early retirement in April 1908 and he died only days later. He was succeeded by H. H. Asquith.

In April 1909, David Lloyd George as Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed the implementation of what has become known as the People's Budget. Backed by Churchill as President of the Board of Trade, Lloyd George declared that his goal was to wage war against poverty by means of social welfare projects to be funded by imposing high taxation on wealth, high incomes and landed property. The Conservative opposition, who represented the interests of wealth and landed property, argued that money should be raised by tariffs on imported goods. The budget was passed by the Commons but, in November 1909, it was vetoed by the House of Lords in which the Tories had a large majority. Asquith called a general election to get a mandate for the budget. Supported by the Irish Parliamentary Party and the rising Labour Party, the Liberals held power after the election in January 1910 resulted in a hung parliament. The Lords passed the budget soon afterwards. Another election was held in December 1910 and the outcome was another hung parliament with Asquith remaining in office. His government passed the Parliament Act 1911 which reduced the powers of the House of Lords.

The First World War began in August 1914. Asquith formed a coalition government in May 1915 but tensions arose in the Liberal Party over enactments such as conscription which made people subserviant to the needs of the state. Many Liberals, including Asquith himself, were sensitive about freedom of the individual from state control, even in the face of a global crisis. On the other hand, Lloyd George had become Asquith's rival and he agreed with the Conservatives that the government must adopt a resolute prosecution of the war. Lloyd George supplanted Asquith as Prime Minister in December 1916. The internal conflicts were set aside until the Armistice in November 1918 but Lloyd George called a general election the following month. In this, his Coalition Liberals were unopposed by their Conservative allies while the Independent Liberals under Asquith were roundly defeated. The collapse of the Liberals coincided with the rise of the Labour Party and with the success of the suffragette movement and the Representation of the People Act 1918, the first to enfranchise women.

In the 1924 general election, the Liberals won only 40 seats after winning less than 20% of the national vote. By 1933, the party had undergone a three-way division into the opposition Liberal Party, the Conservative-supporting Liberal Nationals and, Lloyd George among them, a small group of Independent Liberals.