1920 Paisley by-election

The 1920 Paisley by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 12 February 1920 for the House of Commons constituency of Paisley in Scotland. It was caused by the death of the constituency's sitting Liberal Member of Parliament Sir John Mills McCallum. Former Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, who was still leader of the Liberal Party but who had lost his seat at the 1918 general election, returned to the Commons.

Electoral history

The result at the last General Election in 1918 was;

General election 1918: Paisley^[1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	John Mills McCallum	7,542	34.0	-30.3
	Co-operative Party	John Biggar	7,436	33.5	New
C	National Democratic	John Taylor	7,201	32.5	New
Majority			106	0.5	-28.1
Turnout			22,179	57.6	-17.3
	Liberal hold		Swing	N/A
C indicates candidate endorsed by the coalition government.

Asquith’s return

The by-election provided an opportunity for the return to Parliament of H. H. Asquith, the former Prime Minister who had lost his East Fife seat to the Unionists at the 1918 general election in the aftermath of the split in the Liberal Party over David Lloyd George's coalition with the Conservatives. Asquith remained party leader, and the opponents of the coalition came to be known as the Independent Liberals, or unofficially as the ‘Wee Frees’ after a Scottish religious sect of that name.

Initially, it was widely expected that Biggar, who had nearly won the seat in 1918 and who was endorsed by nine former Liberal MPs, would win.^[2] The Liberal Party in the constituency was split between supporters of Asquith and Lloyd George, and Asquith, whose continued leadership of the Liberal Party was being much criticised, was only narrowly selected as candidate, although after his formal adoption on 21 January 1920 the local Liberal Association united behind him. He initially had misgivings about returning to Scotland and risking his career, but grew more confident as the campaign progressed.^[3]

Asquith had been an opponent of women’s suffrage (women over thirty were given the vote under the Representation of the People Act 1918), and (30 January 1920) thought women voters “hopelessly ignorant, credulous to the last degree, and flickering with gusts of sentiment like a candle in the wind. Then there are some thousands of Irish, who have been ordered by their bosses to vote Labour – as if Labour had ever done or was ever likely to do anything for them”. Asquith directed most of his campaign not against Labour but against the Coalition candidate, whom he thought “a foul-mouthed Tory”. He condemned the Treaty of Versailles and called for moderation over German reparations, immediate Dominion Status for Ireland (where the Irish War of Independence was currently in progress)^[4] and warned of the danger of tariffs being erected, especially by the newly independent small states of Central and Eastern Europe.^[5]^[6]

Political biographer John Campbell noted parallels between the Paisley campaign condemning Lloyd George's opportunism and the Paris Peace Conference to William Ewart Gladstone's Midlothian campaign condemning Benjamin Disraeli and the Congress of Berlin.^[7] Such comparisons were made at the time, although Asquith himself was more circumspect.^[8] Sir John Simon and Lord Buckmaster spoke in Asquith's support, as did his daughter Violet who had become an excellent speaker. The “foul-mouthed Tory” lost his deposit (by ten votes), to Asquith’s delight.^[9]

The by-election seemed to be a triumph for the Independent Liberals with a majority of 2,834 votes over Labour and a blow for the government.

Result

Paisley by-election, 1920^[10]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	H. H. Asquith	14,736	48.4	+14.4
	Labour Co-op	John McLaren Biggar	11,902	39.1	+5.6
C	Unionist	James Anderson Dunlop MacKean	3,795	12.47	New
Majority			2,834	9.3	+8.8
Turnout			30,433	77.6	+20.0
	Liberal hold		Swing	+4.4
C indicates candidate endorsed by the coalition government.

Aftermath

At the following General Election in 1922, Asquith held the seat narrowly, with a much reduced majority (albeit a slightly larger share of the vote) in a two-horse race against Labour. The result was:

General election 1922: Paisley ^[11]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	H. H. Asquith	15,005	50.5	+2.1
	Labour Co-op	John McLaren Biggar	14,689	49.5	+10.4
Majority			316	1.0	-8.3
Turnout			29,694
	Liberal hold		Swing

Asquith held the seat again at the 1923 election but was defeated by Labour at the 1924 election. He was then elevated to the House of Lords as Earl of Oxford and Asquith.

References

^ British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
^ Koss 1985, p246-7
^ Koss 1985, p242-7
^ government policy at the time was restore British rule so that Home Rule, postponed since 1914, could at last be implemented. The Irish Free State eventually set up in 1921-2 was technically a dominion, in British eyes at least.
^ This was a period of currency turmoil and competitive devaluations among these small countries. Free trade was a totemic issue for Liberals, as Asquith had been a leading campaigner against Joseph Chamberlain's campaign for Tariff Reform in the run up to the Liberals' landslide victory in 1906
^ Jenkins 1964, p486-7
^ Campbell, John (2010). Pistols at Dawn: Two Hundred Years of Political Rivalry from Pitt and Fox to Blair and Brown. London: Vintage. p. 181. ISBN 978-1-84595-091-0. OCLC 489636152.
^ Koss 1985, p248-9
^ Jenkins 1964, p486-7
^ British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
^ British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig

Electoral history

Asquith’s return

Result

Aftermath

References

Further reading