After the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed in 1828, all the Nonconformists elected to Parliament were Liberals. Relatively few MPs were Dissenters. However the Dissenters were major voting bloc in many areas, such as the East Midlands.Henry Pelling, Social Geography of British Elections, 1885–1910 (1967) 89–90, 206, They were very well organised and highly motivated and largely won over the Whigs and Liberals to their cause. Gladstone brought the majority of Dissenters around to support for Home Rule for Ireland, putting the dissenting Protestants in league with the Irish Catholics in an otherwise unlikely alliance. The Nonconformist conscience was also repeatedly called upon by Gladstone for support for his moralistic foreign policy. In election after election, Protestant ministers rallied their congregations to the Liberal ticket. (In Scotland, the Presbyterians played a similar role to the Nonconformist Methodists, Baptists and other groups in England and Wales.)David L. Wykes, "Introduction: Parliament and Dissent from the Restoration to the Twentieth Century", Parliamentary History (2005) 24#1 pp. 1–26. . Many of the first MPs elected for the Labour Party in the 1900s were also nonconformists.
After the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed in 1828, all the Nonconformists elected to Parliament were Liberals Relatively few MPs were Dissenters. However the Dissenters were major voting bloc in many areas, such as the East Midlands.Henry Pelling, Social Geography of British Elections 1885–1910 (1967) 89–90, 206, They were very well organised and highly motivated and largely won over the Whigs and Liberals to their cause. Gladstone brought the majority of Dissenters around to support for Home Rule for Ireland, putting the dissenting Protestants in league with the Irish Catholics in an otherwise unlikely alliance. The Nonconformist conscience was also repeatedly called upon by Gladstone for support for his moralistic foreign policy. In election after election, Protestant ministers rallied their congregations to the Liberal ticket. (In Scotland, the Presbyterians played a similar role to the Nonconformist Methodists, Baptists and other groups in England and Wales.)David L. Wykes, "Introduction: Parliament and Dissent from the Restoration to the Twentieth Century" Parliamentary History (2005) 24#1 pp. 1–26. . Many of the first MPs elected for the Labour Party in the 1900s were also nonconformists.