Primrose League

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The Primrose League [ 'prɪmrəʊz li: g ] ( English for Primelliga ) is a conservative club founded in Great Britain in 1883 , which became an important voter organization of the British Conservative Party . The association was founded by the conservative politician Randolph Churchill and named after the favorite flower of the former Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli . The Primrose League was politically active until the mid-1990s and was disbanded in 2004.

history

By the 1880s, direct public appeal and grassroots mobilization had become common practice in Britain, especially in election campaigns. The gain in legitimacy due to broad support from the base was also used for internal party disputes in the Conservative Party, which at the time formed the opposition to incumbent Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone of the Liberal Party . In order to increase the influence of the party base over the parliamentary leadership under Lord Salisbury and to win new conservative electorate across social boundaries for the party, Randolph Churchill and the later Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour founded the Primrose League in 1883. The association got its name from the favorite flower of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who died two years earlier, in whose honor Primrose Day was held annually .

Benjamin Disraeli had already tried to win the workers over to the conservative party. Despite all efforts, workers remained the exception in conservative circles. After Disraeli's death in 1881, a so-called Fourth Party was formed among the younger Tories under the leadership of Churchill and Balfour, which wanted to gain greater influence within the conservative party, but also to mobilize the lower social classes. The Primrose League, founded for this purpose, which was not officially affiliated with the party in order to secure its independence, quickly spread throughout the country and thus became a political mass organization. In 1886 the number of members was already 200,000, in 1891 already one million and in 1908 1.7 million. The association found a particularly large following in rural areas.

The Primrose League won its supporters by allegedly bringing the Lower Class up to the Middle Class and both to the Upper Class . This was done by holding festivities such as Primrose Day, where honorary ranks and badges of rank could be displayed in a festive setting, but also the unity of the nation was evoked. The Primrose League therefore developed into the most important election campaign tool of the conservatives in the pre-war period, especially as new electoral laws drastically reduced election campaign expenses and volunteers had to be used. Here the association was able to replace the missing party machinery with resounding and successful results.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of England in the 19th and 20th centuries. CHBeck, Munich 1987, ISBN 9783406323058 , p. 130. Restricted preview in the Google book search
  2. ↑ Peter Haberle: Yearbook of the public law of the present. New episode. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1983, ISBN 9783166447452 , p. 98. Restricted preview in the Google book search
  3. ↑ Peter Haberle: Yearbook of the public law of the present. New episode. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1983, ISBN 9783166447452 , p. 99. Restricted preview in the Google book search