Liberal Imperialists

The Liberal Imperialists were a grouping within the British Liberal Party, the most prominent of whom were R. B. Haldane, H. H. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey and Lord Rosebery.^[1]

The Liberal Imperialists believed that under the leadership of William Ewart Gladstone the Liberal Party had succumbed to "faddists", sectional interests and the "Celtic fringe" which prevented it from being a truly national party.^[2] Furthermore, the Liberal Party should include people of all classes, along with promoting working-class MPs in the Liberal Party.^[3] They also argued that the Liberals had lost the centre vote because the party had distanced itself from "the new Imperial spirit".^[4] Instead, they argued for a "clean slate", that the Liberal Party must change if it is to succeed. The old, classical Liberalism must give way to the new ideas of "National Efficiency" and imperialism.^[5]

Notes

1. H. C. G. Matthew, The Liberal Imperialists. The Ideas and Politics of a Post-Gladstonian Élite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. viii.
2. Matthew, p. 127.
3. Matthew, pp. 128-129.
4. Matthew, p. 134.
5. Matthew, pp. 136-137.

References

• H. C. G. Matthew, The Liberal Imperialists. The Ideas and Politics of a Post-Gladstonian Élite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).

Further reading

• Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Twenty Five Years. 1892-1916 (1925).
• R. B. Haldane, An Autobiography (1929).
• Robert Rhodes James, Rosebery (1963).
• J. A. Spender and Cyril Asquith, Life of Herbert Henry, Lord Oxford and Asquith (1932).
• Peter Stansky, Ambitions and Strategies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964).