Party Realignment in Britain, 1900-1925: A Preliminary Analysis

It is doubtful that any other period of comparable length in British history witnessed as many profound changes in politics as did the first quarter of the twentieth century. To mention only some of the more important examples, voter turnout rose from about 21% to 76% of the adult population; the party system was transformed when Labour displaced the Liberals as the major party of the left; legislative power was profoundly altered by the Parliament Act of 1911 which deprived the Lords of the right to veto permanently bills passed by the Commons; the social base of parlimentary recruitment expanded to include more members from lower middle- and working-class backgrounds; the disruptive influence of Irish self-government was removed from political life; and public concern shifted from issues related to Empire and wider access to parliamentary politics to domestic matters of a distributional nature. Under the cumulative impact of these changes, particularly in the party system, British politics in essence ceased to be traditional, and became modern.