Turning of the tide? A case study of the Liberal Party in provincial Britain in the late 1930s

Since the 1960s much has been written about the decline of the Liberal Party in British politics during the first half of the twentieth century. Yet there is a tendency for historians to focus on the reasons for the demise of the Liberals as a party of government in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. This article seeks to extend Liberal historiography by investigating issues of decline and survival in subsequent decades. It focuses on the political experience of Cornwall, a traditional Liberal stronghold, to highlight the need to consider electoral realignment from a provincial perspective. This was particularly the case in the late 1930s, which tends to be dismissed as a further period of decline for the Liberals culminating in the disastrous election result of 1945. In Cornwall, however, the pre-war years held out the prospect of a recovery in the general election due by 1940. The possibility of a protest vote on the part of the farming community, combined with a local momentum in favour of a Popular Front with Labour, meant that the Liberals were now in a position to mount a serious challenge to the National government's supremacy at the local level.