Talk:Independent Liberal Party (UK, 1918)

Potentially rejigging this

I think this article is describing a clear concept - the "Wee Frees" supporters (at least nominally) of Asquith in the period 1916-1923 - but the title and some of the content need rejigging.

Political parties were slightly different beasts in the early 20th century with both the Conservatives and Liberals having a lot of elements that were de facto in place even if de jure they were not so well linked up. To some extent this reflected their origins as groups in parliament with various independently established supporting organisations coming together. (Labour took an early lead in reorganising itself in 1918 to create a more clearcut national membership party.) But there definitely were clear concepts of "the Liberal Party" and "the Conservative Party".

Related to this it was also not unknown for internal disagreements to make it to the electorate. Today virtually all the well-known political parties are organised to the point that any dissenting candidacy leads to immediate expulsion but a century plus ago it was not unknown for voters to be presented with two competing candidates both committed to supporting the same government in the Commons. There is a range from individual dispute to internally organised factions to breakaway parties and it can be difficult to nail down some of the Liberal splits within this. To add to this Lloyd George was never a friend of convention and was willing to smash the party for personalist goals.

(The "rule" about the party leader automatically being the sitting or most recent former PM basically got suspended in this dispute. It was primarily an acknowledgement that the ex PM who still led in one of the Houses was still the "leader" of the party and its candidate for PM in the next government over the leader in the other House. Just days after Asquith was deposed as PM meetings of both Liberal MPs and the National Liberal Federation executive gave him votes of confidence as leader.)

Probably the least worst description of the Liberals in the period 1916-1923 is a party in deep bitter divides with the battle fought both internally and externally at multiple levels. Asquith and his supporters proved better at securing much of the official apparatus such as the National Liberal Federation and the Scottish Liberal Association (he was the sitting President) but not all with Lloyd George securing the Welsh National Liberal Council (he was the sitting President) and Asquith's followers forming the rival Welsh Liberal Federation. Lloyd George's National Liberal Council/Party was to an extent merely a tool for countering the official apparatus that was out of his control. At the local level many MPs retained the support of their individual associations but there were some fierce battles over which faction got the nomination and sometimes these were carried forward to the public election - Cardiganshire and Cambourne spring to mind as seats that both saw running disputes over multiple elections that didn't end with the national reunion with both sides at different times holding the "official" nomination.

And amidst all this there were men and women who defined themselves not as "Asquithian Liberals" or "Lloyd George Liberals" but rather as just "Liberals" who confuse all the lists by being difficult to nail down.

Unfortunately Wikipedia's tables are invariably biased towards a clearcut structure and a narrative of an official party and a shortlived breakaway party but this article is also confused in presenting the Wee Frees as a newly formed party in 1918. The Liberals in 1916 until the election at the end of 1918 were a confused party in Parliament with some members in government but not the leader who performed the function of Leader of the Opposition to a PM who was from the same party. The 1918 election smashed the party up into supporters of Lloyd George who largely survived through the Coalition Coupon and other Liberals (not all of whom were great fans of Asquith) who mostly went down to defeat. In the new Parliament a group of Liberal MPs mainly elected against the Coupon self-organised as a group of "Free" Liberals (hence the "Wee Free" nickname) under a parliamentary leader appointed by Asquith and joint Chief Whips (one appointed by Asquith, the other foisted upon him by MPs) and soon rejected the Coalition whip then spent the next few years in public feuding with Lloyd George's followers with the long term control of the party at stake. Timrollpickering (talk) 01:35, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

4 years ago I proposed that this article be deleted. Since then, the article has not changed much and it does not link in any meaningful way with any other article on wikipedia. There is no content in the article that is not covered by other far better linked articles. This articles covers the subject badly and incorrectly. Given that no such party actually existed, its existence seems only to serve to confuse anyone who is unlucky enough to come across it. If anyone were to propose it for deletion, I would support that but I am not going to bother to do that again by myself. Graemp (talk) 19:04, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I think the best may be an article on the split itself rather than competing continuity and breakaway articles. It's part of a general problem of how to handle party splits, especially those that reunified after only a few years. Timrollpickering (talk) 21:48, 3 August 2020 (UTC)