Middle Class Union

The Middle Class Union was founded by Lord George Ranken Askwith in March 1919 to safeguard property after the Reform Act 1918 had increased the number of working class people eligible to vote. The Conservative MP and Irish landowner J. R. Pretyman Newman was also a member.

Lord Robert Cecil described the MCU as a strike-breaking body designed to encourage:

"...the smaller trading, propertied and professional classes [to] band themselves together to protect their interests ... and secure their property ... from revolution and extreme Labour demands".[1]

It changed its name to the National Citizens Union in 1921.

Notes

  1. ^ Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour. 1920-1924 (Cambridge University Press, 1971), p. 65.