ABSTRACT
The enduring strength of Manchester Liberalism during the Home Rule crisis illustrates just how local parties could survive disagreements that rocked the parties at Westminster. Regional and local circumstances were often very important in determining the effect political conflicts had on individual Liberal Associations. Indeed, national issues sometimes played only a limited part in local political debate. Before the Home Rule crisis many Leicester Radicals clearly looked to Chamberlain for new radical social policies – but very few followed him into Liberal Unionism. Leicester's own dynamic local political agenda diluted the immediate impact of the Home Rule controversy. Leicester Liberals had their own particular preoccupations in the spring of 1886 and were involved in a major campaign on the 'Vaccination question'. Indeed the overall Unionist campaign was more vigorous than that of the Liberal Party. The Liberal Association provided no conveyances to take electors to the poll and conducted no systematic, organised canvass.
