Newcastle Programme

The Newcastle Programme was a statement of policies passed by the representatives of the English and Welsh Liberal Associations meeting at the annual conference of the National Liberal Federation (NLF) in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1891. The centrepiece of the Newcastle Programme was the primacy of Irish Home Rule, but associated with it were a raft of other reforms, in particular: taxation of land values; abolition of entail; extension of smallholdings; reform of the Lords; shorter parliaments; district and parish councils; registration reform and abolition of plural voting; local veto on drink sales; employers' liability for workers' accidents and disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales and Scotland.^[1][2]

In the short run it proved a political liability. Liberals won the 1892 United Kingdom general election but failed to enact the Newcastle Programme. They were on the losing side in the 1895 United Kingdom general election and remained out of power until their landslide win in the 1906 United Kingdom general election. The Newcastle Programme was important for two reasons; first, it gave the Liberal party a Radical agenda^[3] on which to fight the next general election and second, the detailed 'shopping list' of policies it adopted was innovatory in British politics, setting a precedent for modern political parties. Today ordinary members of all major political parties participate in policy development and the parties present the electorate with a programme or manifesto for government, agreed or endorsed in some way by their members.