Editing Liberal Unionist Party (section)

===The Unionist Coalition===
While the Whiggish wing of the Liberal Unionists cooperated informally with the Conservative Government (and supplied it with a cabinet minister), the party's Radical Unionist wing held a series of meetings with their former Liberal colleagues. Led by Chamberlain and Sir [[Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet|George Trevelyan]], the Round Table Conference was an attempt to see if reunion of the Liberal Party was possible. Despite some progress (and Chamberlain's statement that they were united on ninety-nine out of a hundred issues), the problem of Home Rule for Ireland could not be resolved. Neither Hartington nor Gladstone took a direct part in these meetings, and there seemed to be no other Liberal statesman who could reunite the party. Within a few months the talks were over, though some Liberal Unionists, including Trevelyan, later rejoined the Liberal Party soon after.

The failed talks of 1887 forced the Liberal Unionists to continue to develop their links with the Conservatives. In Parliament, they supported the Salisbury administration, though they sat on the opposition benches alongside the Liberals. Hostile feelings between the former political colleagues hardened with the return of Gladstone as Prime Minister, following the [[1892 United Kingdom general election|1892 general election]]. Forming a minority government (with Irish Nationalist parliamentary support), the Liberals introduced the [[Irish Government Bill 1893|second Home Rule bill]]. Leading the opposition to the Bill were Hartington (now the Duke of Devonshire) and Chamberlain. The Bill was defeated in the [[House of Lords]] by a massive majority of Conservative and Liberal Unionist peers.

By now all chance of a reunion between the Liberals and Liberal Unionists had disappeared, and it was no great surprise when leading Liberal Unionists joined Salisbury's [[Unionist government, 1895–1905|new administration]] in 1895 following the [[1895 United Kingdom general election|heavy electoral defeat]] inflicted on the Liberal Party. The resulting government was generally referred to as "Unionist", and the distinction between Conservatives and Liberal Unionists began to dissolve, though the latter were still able to field around 100 candidates for all the subsequent general elections until the [[December 1910 United Kingdom general election|December 1910 general election]] when that total dropped to 75.<ref name="Ferris, Wesley 2011">Ferris, Wesley (2011). "The Candidates of the Liberal Unionist Party, 1886–1912". Parliamentary History. 30# 2: 142–157. doi:10.1111/j.1750-0206.2011.00246.x.</ref>

Though a few Liberal Unionists like Goschen formally joined the Conservatives (by becoming member of the exclusively Tory [[Carlton Club]]), the party still continued to maintain a separate identity and to raise their own funds. Their strength in the House of Commons fell from 78 seats in 1886 to 47 in 1892 but recovered to 71 and then 68 in the general elections of 1895 and [[1900 United Kingdom general election|1900]]. The Liberal Unionists managed to stay strong in the south-west of England, the West Midlands (the centre of Chamberlain's power base), and especially in Scotland, where the Liberal Unionists were initially the more dominant group in their alliance with the Scottish Conservatives against the Liberals.<ref name="Cawood"/>