The Newcastle Programme

The Newcastle Programme was a statement of policies passed by the representatives of the English and Welsh Liberal Associations meeting at the annual conference of the National Liberal Federation (NLF) in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1891. The centrepiece of the Newcastle Programme was the primacy of Irish Home Rule, but associated with it were a raft of other reforms, in particular: land reform; reform of the Lords; shorter parliaments; district and parish councils; registration reform and abolition of plural voting; local veto on drink sales; employers' liability for workers' accidents and Scottish and Welsh disestablishment.

The Newcastle Programme was therefore important for two reasons; first, it gave the Liberal party a Radical agenda on which to fight the next general election and second, the detailed 'shopping list' of policies it adopted was innovatory in British politics, setting a precedent for modern political parties. Today ordinary members of all major political parties participate in policy development and the parties present the electorate with a programme or manifesto for government, agreed or endorsed in some way by their members.

The Liberal Party's leading pioneer of organised campaigning had been Joseph Chamberlain. In 1885, he put forward the Radical Programme, unauthorised by the party leadership, as an election manifesto for using the constructive power of the state but Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone subverted Chamberlain's efforts, co-opting the NLF for mainstream Liberalism. By adopting Home Rule for Ireland as his banner, Gladstone trumped the Radical Programme, driving Chamberlain out of the party to form the Liberal Unionists. In the great schism of 1886 over Home Rule, the NLF deserted Chamberlain to remain loyal to Gladstone.

Between 1886 and 1891, Home Rule dominated Liberal policy debates but two events damaged their Irish allies. In 1887, The Times published letters, implicating Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish Home Rule party leader, in the Phoenix Park murders of a government minister and a civil servant, although a high-profile government inquiry later discovered the letters to be forgeries. In 1890, the divorce of Katharine O'Shea, which identified Parnell as Mrs O'Shea's lover, split the Irish party and scandalised nonconformist Liberals. The split in the Irish Home Rule party in 1890 weakened the likelihood of a successful Home Rule Bill. At the 1891 meeting of the NLF in Newcastle upon Tyne Gladstone reaffirmed the primacy of Home Rule, but associated it with reforms on the mainland by adopting various proposals of the NLF Council, in particular: land reform; reform of the Lords; shorter parliaments; district and parish councils; registration reform and abolition of plural voting; local veto on drink sales; employers' liability for workers' accidents; Scottish and Welsh disestablishment. The Newcastle programme was to be the solution to these dilemmas, a manifesto for British government.

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