Editing Liberal Party (UK) (section)

=== Religious alignment ===
Since 1660, [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|nonconformist]] Protestants have played a major role in English politics. Relatively few MPs were [[English Dissenters|Dissenters]]. However the Dissenters were a major voting bloc in many areas, such as the East Midlands.<ref>Henry Pelling, ''Social Geography of British Elections, 1885–1910'' (London, 1967), 89–90, 206.</ref> They were very well organised and highly motivated and largely won over the Whigs and Liberals to their cause. Down to the 1830s, Dissenters demanded removal of [[political and civil disabilities]] that applied to them (especially those in the [[Test and Corporation Acts]]). The Anglican establishment strongly resisted until 1828. Numerous reforms of voting rights, especially that of 1832, increased the political power of Dissenters. They demanded an end to compulsory church rates, in which local taxes went only to Anglican churches. They finally achieved the end of religious tests for university degrees in 1905. Gladstone brought the majority of Dissenters around to support for Home Rule for Ireland, putting the dissenting Protestants in league with the Irish Roman Catholics in an otherwise unlikely alliance. The Dissenters gave significant support to moralistic issues, such as temperance and sabbath enforcement. The [[nonconformist conscience]], as it was called, was repeatedly called upon by Gladstone for support for his moralistic foreign policy.<ref>D. W. Bebbington, ''The Nonconformist Conscience: Chapel and Politics, 1870–1914'' (George Allen & Unwin, 1982).</ref> In election after election, Protestant ministers rallied their congregations to the Liberal ticket. In Scotland, the Presbyterians played a similar role to the Nonconformist Methodists, Baptists and other groups in England and Wales.<ref>David L. Wykes, "Introduction: Parliament and Dissent from the Restoration to the Twentieth Century", ''Parliamentary History'' (2005) 24#1, pp. 1–26.</ref>

By the 1820s, the different Nonconformists, including [[Wesleyan Methodist Church (Great Britain)|Wesleyan Methodists]], Baptists, Congregationalists and Unitarians, had formed the [[Protestant dissenting deputies|Committee of Dissenting Deputies]] and agitated for repeal of the highly restrictive Test and [[Corporation Act 1661|Corporation]] Acts.<ref>{{cite book|author=Angus Hawkins|title=Victorian Political Culture: 'Habits of Heart and Mind'|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-PcJCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA84|year=2015|publisher=Oxford UP|page=84|isbn=9780191044144}}</ref> These Acts excluded Nonconformists from holding civil or military office or attending Oxford or Cambridge, compelling them to set up their own [[Dissenting Academies]] privately.<ref name="auto">Iain MacAllister et al., "Yellow fever? The political geography of Liberal voting in Great Britain", ''Political Geography'' (2002) 21#4, pp. 421–447.</ref> The [[Tories (British political party)|Tories]] tended to be in favour of these Acts and so the Nonconformist cause was linked closely to the [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]], who advocated civil and religious liberty. After the Test and Corporation Acts were [[Sacramental Test Act 1828|repealed in 1828]], all the Nonconformists elected to Parliament were Liberals. Nonconformists were angered by the [[Education Act 1902]], which integrated Church of England denominational schools into the state system and provided for their support from taxes. [[John Clifford (minister)|John Clifford]] formed the National Passive Resistance Committee and by 1906 over 170 Nonconformists had gone to prison for refusing to pay school taxes.<ref>{{Citation|last=Mitchell|first=Sally|title=Victorian Britain An Encyclopedia|date=2011|publisher=Taylor & Francis Ltd|location=London|isbn=978-0415668514|page=66}}</ref> They included 60 [[Primitive Methodists]], 48 Baptists, 40 Congregationalists and 15 Wesleyan Methodists.

The political strength of Dissent faded sharply after 1920 with the secularisation of British society in the 20th century. The rise of the Labour Party reduced the Liberal Party strongholds into the nonconformist and remote "Celtic Fringe", where the party survived by an emphasis on localism and historic religious identity, thereby neutralising much of the class pressure on behalf of the Labour movement.<ref name="auto"/> Meanwhile, the Anglican Church was a bastion of strength for the Conservative Party. On the Irish issue, the Anglicans strongly supported unionism. Increasingly after 1850, the Roman Catholic element in England and Scotland was composed of recent emigrants from Ireland who largely voted for the [[Irish Parliamentary Party]] until its collapse in 1918.