The Fourth Party was a label given to a quartet of British MPs, Lord Randolph Churchill, Henry Drummond Wolff, John Gorst and Arthur Balfour, in the 1880-1885 parliament.
They attacked what they saw as the weakness of both the Liberal government and the Conservative opposition. Despite the label, they were all backbench members of the Conservative Party.
In the view of The New York Times, they would "act as skirmishers to the main body, popping out here and there to fire a shot at the Government and being ostensibly rebuked but really supported by the Conservative leaders."
The later Conservative Party faction known as the Hughligans was "a self-conscious attempt to recreate the 'Fourth Party'", according to Rhodri Williams.
Read more about Fourth Party: Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words fourth and/or party:
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
—Bible: Hebrew Exodus, 20:8-11.
The fourth commandment.
“The party of God and the party of Literature have more in common than either will admit; their texts may conflict, but their bigotries coincide. Both insist on being the sole custodians of the true word and its only interpreters.”
—Frederic Raphael (b. 1931)