The Party Splits! (In 1846!)

TALKING POLITICS

Catherine Carr

News, News & Politics

4.7 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2019

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The current crisis for the Conservatives is often described as the worst since the party split over the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. So we talk to historian Boyd Hilton about what really happened back then and what it meant for British politics. Why were the Corn Laws so divisive? How did public opinion impact on the politicians? Did Peel betray his party or did he do what needed to be done? And what are the real lessons for Brexit and for the Conservative Party today? With Helen Thompson. * We have extra show notes below, with a guide to the historical timeline and some further reading suggestions.

Talking Points:

What were the Corn Laws?

From 1815-1846, a series of tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported grains kept prices artificially high to favor domestic producers.
The laws were controversial from the beginning (but there wasn’t sizeable, collective opposition until later).
The Corn Laws benefited those who owned land, but they increased food prices and the costs of living for most of the British public. Manufacturers also opposed the Corn Laws, which they saw as inhibiting free trade.
Scarcity and self-sufficiency were part of the motivating ideology behind these laws. But in practice, they made Britain vulnerable to bad harvests.
In 1846, under increasing pressure, Conservative Prime Minister Robert Peel went against his own party to repeal the Corn Laws with the support of the Whigs. This split the Party, and kept it out of power for almost a generation.

A Corn Laws Timeline:

1815: Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the first Corn Laws were introduced to protect British grain production from outside competition.
1832: The first Reform Act partially extends the franchise to include certain segments of the population who do not own landed property. It also redistributes seats from the agricultural south and west to the industrializing north.
1834: A new poor law is passed, establishing workhouses and leading to the effective criminalization of poverty.
1836: The Anti Corn Law Association is founded (in 1839 it becomes the Anti-Corn Law League).
1841: Peel’s Conservatives take control of the House of Commons. This is the first time that a majority government is thrown out by the electorate since 1708.
1844: As part of Peel’s deflationary program, the Bank Charter Act restricts the powers of British banks and gives the Bank of England the exclusive right to issue banknotes. This act creates a ratio between gold reserves and currency circulation.
1845: The great famine in Ireland begins.
1846: The Corn Laws are repealed, leading to a split in the Conservative Party and Peel’s resignation.
1848: A series of revolutions and uprisings take place across Europe, including, most notably, in France. Anxiety over revolution leads to the repression and ultimate destruction of Chartism.
1850s: Britain enthusiastically embraces free trade, this appears to be validated by the economic boom of the 1860s

Key Terms and Figures:

Sir Robert Peel: The two-time, technocratic Conservative Prime Minister who repealed the Corn Laws. Although he was elected on a protectionist platform, Peel played a key role in Britain’s embrace of free trade. In 1846, he bucked his own party to join the Whigs and the Radicals to repeal the Corn Laws. This led to his resignation that year.
Benjamin Disraeli: A two-time Conservative Prime Minister who played a key role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party. He clashed with Peel over the repeal of the Corn Laws.
The Anti-Corn Law League: A highly successful, predominantly middle-class political movement that opposed the Corn Laws.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, my name is David Ronserman and this is Talking Politics. It's become a bit of a cliche in the last two years to say that the Conservative Party is facing its gravest crisis since the middle of the 19th century, when the repeal of the Corn laws split the party in two and kept it out of power for more or less a generation.
0:24.0	So we thought we would ask, what were the Corn laws, what actually happened back then, and are their lessons for today.
0:36.0	Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books.
0:40.0	As politics speeds up, slow down with a subscription to the LRB, where Brexit and Trump are only part of a picture that includes, well, everything else.
0:51.0	Read relevant pieces and subscribe at a special rate at lrb.co.uk forward slash talking.
1:03.0	I'm delighted that Helen Thompson and I are joined today by Boyd Hilton, pre-eminent historian of this period, author of the classic book, A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People.
1:13.0	There was a question mark in the title, England 1783 to 1846 and 1846 is our key date for this, that's the year of the split.
1:23.0	What we're going to try and do is just sketch out how politics work back then, because Boyd is a real historian, he may be reluctant to do some of the comparisons for today that me and Helen are going to go for.
1:35.0	So we'll have to see how that works, we may shoehorn them in. But before we do that, I think we need to talk about what politics was like.
1:42.0	In the 1840s, this is the period after the first reform act, so we have a somewhat more democratic system, the franchises being expanded from about 400,000 people to about 650,000, I think more importantly, elections are more genuinely competitive by this point, and contested, which they weren't always before.
2:03.0	And it's a two-party system, the two parties are the party that we still call the Conservative Party and the Wigs.
2:12.0	So just to start with, how disciplined were those two parties?
2:16.0	How independent were MPs in the 1840s, if you wanted to devote with your conscience, if you felt you couldn't stomach the policy of the government ostensibly of your government?
2:26.0	Did MPs feel that they could do what they liked?
2:29.0	MPs did feel that, yes. The paradox of the period is that in the course of the 30s, the electorate seems to have become increasingly polarized particularly in the borough, so that in 1841 there's an election in the amount of split voting, where the voter gives one vote to the Liberal Party and the other vote to the Conservative Party.
2:50.0	The amount of split voting has come down to a very, very historically low level at about 8%.
2:56.0	It rises again in 1847 and it high up in the 18%, 19%, until it comes down again in 1868.
3:03.0	So 1841 stands out as a time when the constituents seem to know where they are.
3:09.0	It may partly be due to the Municipal Corporation Act of 1835, which meant there were annual elections fought on party lines every year.
3:18.0	That might have something to do with it. There might be other reasons. But anyway, that is the constituency party, but the MPs were still stuck in a mindset which said that they were free to decide which party to support.
3:31.0	Now, of course, many were committed on one way or the other. Some were a sort of fringe torres or fringe wigs, liberals. Some were genuinely independent.
3:41.0	The 1841 election is fascinating because it's the first time that a majority government is thrown out by the electorate since 1708. It never happened in the 18th century.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Catherine Carr, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Catherine Carr and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.