Afterword: considerations for British politics

Long-term changes, such as the decline of particular sectors of the economy, or changing demographics within a society, can be energised by short-term factors (war, pandemics, etc.) to produce dramatic changes in the outlook and behaviour of electorates. Political parties, given traditional party-political processes, broad-church structures and historic identities, will almost inevitably struggle to respond to rapid and profound political shifts caused by socio-economic changes energised by short-term factors. In 1922 it was easier for the Conservative and Coalition Liberal Parties to base their electoral appeal on what they were not, or what they were against (socialism and militant labourism) rather than what they stood for except in the most general terms (peace in Europe, the League of Nations, Empire, moderation in spending, limited social provision). The Conservative Party, in particular, ran its campaign explicitly on the fact that it was ‘not Lloyd George’ because traditional policies such as Tariff Reform and Ireland appeared problematic or simply no longer relevant. This sense of the Conservatives and Liberals trying to craft new identities for themselves would continue during the interwar period but in 1922, ‘Tranquillity and Peace’ and ‘Not Lloyd George’ were something of a hostage to fortune, given the perceived likely outcome of the 1922 General Election and the strategic decision to leave the door open to ‘a close working relationship’ with the Lloyd Georgeites. The attempt to manage the election through maintaining, where possible, local pacts for the Conservatives to co-opt Lloyd George Liberals into the role of the new Liberal Unionists, ran counter to what broad sections of the new British electorate actually wanted in 1922.

The Conservatives and Lloyd George Liberals, in thinking that a coalition was the most likely outcome of the 1922 General Election, not only ‘misread the room’, but also attempted to mislead its occupants with local arrangements and private promises of support by candidates that amounted to an unspoken pact of sorts between the parties at the national level. The moral of this story appeared to be that second guessing an electorate in the midst of a rapid political shift is exceptionally difficult.

However, in the twenty-first century party pacts remain on the table as a means of electoral management with the Electoral Commission having formally published advice on their nature and management.¹ In the General Election of 2019 the Conservative Party flirted with an electoral pact with the Brexit Party and, while it was rejected, the Brexit Party only stood in opposition-held seats. This helped to gift the Conservatives a majority of over seventy seats. While there is suspicion that party pacts are undemocratic, they may, in the future, become even more common as a means to address the iniquities of the first-past-the-post system. Indeed, in April 2022 Oliver Dowden, the Conservative Party Chairman, made suggestions that Labour and the Liberal Democrats had reached local party pacts to stand down candidates against each other in the May local elections.² Following the 2024 General Election, with the Conservatives and Reform splitting the right-wing vote to maximise the Labour landslide, the Conservatives again must face the prospect of coalition or ‘fusion’ to rebuild their electoral fortunes.