Liberal Unionist Party - Moving Towards A Unionist Coalition

Moving Towards A Unionist Coalition

The failed talks of 1887 forced the Liberal Unionists to continue to develop their links with the Conservatives. In Parliament, they supported the Salisbury administration, though they sat on the opposition benches alongside the Liberals. Relations between the former political colleagues hardened with the return of Gladstone as Prime Minister, following the 1892 General Election. Forming a minority government (with Irish Nationalist parliamentary support), the Liberals introduced the second Home Rule bill. Leading the opposition to the Bill were Hartington (now the Duke of Devonshire) and Chamberlain. The Bill was defeated in the House of Lords by a massive majority of Conservative and Liberal Unionist peers.

By now all chance of a reunion between the Liberals and Liberal Unionists had disappeared, and it was no great surprise when leading Liberal Unionists joined Salisbury's new administration in 1895 following the heavy electoral defeat inflicted on the Liberal party. The resulting government was generally referred to as "Unionist", and the distinction between Conservatives and Liberal Unionists began to dissolve.

Though a few Liberal Unionists like Goschen formally joined the Conservatives (by becoming member of the exclusive Tory Carlton Club), the party still continued to maintain a separate identity and to raise their own funds. Their strength in the House of Commons fell from 78 seats in 1886 to 47 in 1892 but recovered to 71 and then 68 in the general elections of 1895 and 1900. The Liberal Unionists managed to stay strong in the south-west of England, the West Midlands (the centre of Chamberlain's power base), and especially in Scotland, where the Liberal Unionists were initially the more dominant group in their alliance with the Scottish Conservatives against the Liberals.