Liverpool Protestant Party - 1930 To 1945

1930 To 1945

The Local Government Act 1929 abolished the Boards of Guardians and handed their responsibilities to local authorities. Liverpool Corporation took over three Boards – West Derby for the North and East of the City, Liverpool for the City Centre and Toxteth Park for the South. Some rationalisation of the various hospital and other facilities took place which meant that the Liverpool Board of Guardians 9-acre (36,000 m2) facility at Brownlow Hill became redundant. The City Council decided to sell the site to the Roman Catholic Church to build a Cathedral. Sales of redundant land and property to Catholic interests had been blocked by Protestant representatives on the Boards, but under the Council the sale went ahead with Conservative approval.

This led to the Protestant Party contesting the City Council elections of November 1930. Only the party leader Pastor Longbottom was successful, in St Domingo, but in several wards the Protestant Party took enough votes from the Conservatives to cause them to lose them to Labour.

It opposed the emergent socialist politics of the Labour movement and called for curbs on immigration into Great Britain from Roman Catholic areas of Ireland. It also blamed Irish immigrants for unemployment, poor housing and high rates.

It primarily fought local government seats, but did stand the Reverend H. D. Longbottom in the Liverpool Kirkdale seat for Westminster elections from 1931 until 1945. In 1931, he took a quarter of the votes cast. It had a number of councillors throughout their existence, even as late as the 1960s. It won its last seat in 1973 but activity was waning and as the "orange vote" subsided in influence the LPP found it harder to continue. In 1974 its members were invited to subsume themselves into the local Conservative Party, which they subsequently did.

The "orange vote" has not totally died in Liverpool. The Democratic Unionist Party has looked into the possibility of establishing a branch in Liverpool, possibly considering standing local government candidates there as well. Former members of the LPP have been involved with this attempt.