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"Wyburn-Powell, Alun"
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Defectors and the Liberal Party 1910-2010
This book is the first analysis of political defections over a long time span. It investigates all the Liberal/Liberal Democrat MPs and former MPs who defected from the party between the elections of December 1910 and May 2010 - around one sixth of all those elected - as well as the smaller number of inward defectors. Each of the 122 defections was an expert judgment on the state of the party at a specific date. The research investigates the timing and reasons for all the defections and reveals long-term trends and underlying causes and apportions responsibility between leaders for them. The author finds some significant differences which distinguished defectors from loyalists and draws wider conclusions about the underlying factors which lead MPs to defect. This book will be of interest to students and lecturers of British politics and anyone interested in the relationship between British political parties in the last century.
eBook
Defectors and the Liberal Party 1910 to 2010: a study of inter-party relations
This book is the first analysis of political defections over a long time span. It investigates all the Liberal/Liberal Democrat MPs and former MPs who defected from the party between the elections of December 1910 and May 2010 - around one sixth of all those elected - as well as the smaller number of inward defectors. Each of the 122 defections was an expert judgment on the state of the party at a specific date. The research investigates the timing and reasons for all the defections and reveals long-term trends and underlying causes and apportions responsibility between leaders for them. The author finds some significant differences which distinguished defectors from loyalists and draws wider conclusions about the underlying factors which lead MPs to defect. Summary reprinted by permission of Manchester University Press
eBook
Defectors and the Liberal Party since December 1910
The Liberal Party was the dominant party of government from the 1850s to the Great War, but it was virtually wiped out by the 1950s. The causes and timing of the party’s decline are contested by historians, with Dangerfield, McKibbin and Pelling arguing for a root in Edwardian times; Wilson, Tanner and Bentley asserting that the Great War was the cause; and Hart arguing the case for the 1918 election being critical. This research is the first to investigate the role of defections of MPs and former MPs in the party’s decline. Each defection was a judgement on the state of the party at a specific date. They suggest that neither pre-War change, nor the War itself, was catastrophic for the party. Few defectors left because of the War and the party was still in a recoverable situation after the 1918 election. One sixth of the Liberal MPs, who sat after December 1910, defected from the party – nearly all between 1918 and 1956. The main damage was done by a mechanical, rather than ideological, failure of the Liberal Party. Lloyd George was the leader who presided over the most serious outflow of defectors. Three other figures, who have not previously been strongly associated with the Liberals’ decline, were critically involved - William Wedgwood Benn, Reginald McKenna and Freddie Guest. Negative aspects of the Liberal Party exerted much stronger influence on the defectors than did the positive attractions of any other party. MPs with a military background, high personal wealth and those from a minority religion were most likely to defect. Defectors went almost equally to the right and the left, but those going to the Conservative Party almost all remained satisfied with their new party, whereas over half of the defectors to Labour came to regret their move.
Dissertation
Liberal defectors to the Conservatives
This chapter considers all the defectors who left the Liberal/Liberal Democrat Party to join the Conservatives during the hundred years covered by this study. The defectors are studied by grouping, according to their reasons for defection, as described at the end of Chapter 2. Figure 2.3 gives an overview of the membership of each grouping.
No Liberal defectors went to the Conservatives between December 1910 and October 1922. The leftward-headed War Policy Objectors, discussed in Chapter 3, had begun to part company from the Liberal Party even before the formation of the Asquith Coalition and primarily because of their severance
Book Chapter
Defectors and loyalists
From the December 1910 election to the dissolution of May 2010, a total of 707 individuals served as a Liberal or Liberal Democrat MP.¹ Of these, 116, about one in six (16%), defected from the party, representing a serious loss of talent and, in many cases, money. Conversely, despite the party’s manifest and serious problems, the majority of MPs did remain loyal to the party. This chapter identifi es the scale and pattern of defections and some of the attributes which distinguished those who defected from those who stayed loyal.
The vast majority of the defectors were still actively seeking
Book Chapter
Inward defectors
For contrast and completeness, the scale and timing of inward defections to the Liberal/Liberal Democrats between 1910 and 2010 can be compared to the loss of outward defectors considered in the previous chapters. In this research an inward defector has been defi ned as someone who sat as an MP for another party, or as an independent, before becoming a Liberal or Liberal Democrat MP. Both outward and inward defectors must have served as an MP before the defection and in both cases they must have served at some stage as a Liberal or Liberal Democrat MP. However, this inevitably
Book Chapter