Albert Davy - United Party

United Party

In the middle of 1927, Davy was contacted by John William Shaw McArthur, an Auckland businessman who shared Davy's view of the government. With financial backing from McArthur, Davy began to lay the foundations of a new political party, eventually dubbed the United New Zealand Political Organisation. He was assisted by the fact that he still retained membership and contact lists from the Reform Party, enabling him to draw away Reform supporters who were sympathetic to his cause. In November, Davy's organisation merged with two factions of the collapsing Liberal Party, led by George Forbes and Bill Veitch — the new organisation was named the United Party. When a leadership clash between Forbes and Veitch loomed, Davy arranged for Joseph Ward, a former Liberal premier, to take the position as a compromise candidate.

In the 1925 election, Davy ran a strong campaign for the United Party. The party performed well, managing to win the same number of seats as the Reform Party. However, neither United nor Reform had enough strength to govern alone — the Labour Party held the balance of power. United managed to secure Labour's support, and formed a government, but Davy was displeased at this development — far from fighting the left-wingers, United was now dependent on their support, and was implementing many of the same policies that had caused Davy to quit Reform. Davy came to believe that as long as United and Reform remained enemies, the left would hold the balance of power, and would therefore be able to dictate terms. As such, Davy began to advocate an "anti-socialist" grand coalition between United and Reform, hoping to shut the left out altogether. In early 1930, Davy publicly attacked Ward, accusing him of authoritarianism and of caving in to Labour's demands too readily. Shortly afterwards, he was dismissed from the party.