New Liberal

New Liberal was a party description used by Alan Ernest Lomas (14 June 1918 – 25 January 2016) and his supporters, who were based in the London Borough of Islington in the 1960s.

[3] From December 1961 onwards, Lomas set up an organisation in East Islington as part of the then locally-dormant Liberal Party.

His journal, the Viewpoint and Islington Advertiser, a semi-literate sheet notably similar to British National Party propaganda, deals almost exclusively with immigration, rats, dysentery, overcrowding, and the 'Defence of England’.

Describing the people of Islington in their overcrowded houses, it jibes: ‘Perhaps if they were not English, the Labour Council would help.’[9] Looking back, former MP and Liberal Party insider Michael Meadowcroft branded Lomas as 'far right and racist', and wrote that Lomas cleverly latched on to the generous benefits of the 'Liberal' description while propagating wholly illiberal views.

Party officials, including Frank Byers, fearful of a public scene, were all for leaving him there but, as Chief Steward, I was having none of it, being sure that he would try and intervene in the proceedings.

[11] The North London Press noted, ‘Mr Lomas, in an election statement claims that some tenants in Islington are being intimidated by immigrant landlords’[12] The New Liberals ran three candidates for the three Islington-wide seats in the 1964 Greater London Council election; and they took more votes than the official Liberal candidates.

[16] Nicholas Deakin wrote of the 1964 campaign that Lomas professed as his main objective ’In our lifetime Great Britain into SPACE with automation for all’, but in fact he ‘concentrated very largely on the immigration issue and in particular Labour’s attitude’.

[23] Lomas and his first wife Elsie stood as 'Liberal' candidates in a double (two-seat) by-election for the Barnsbury Ward of Islington Borough Council in 1973.

[24] Lomas and his second wife Valerie were 'Independent SDP' candidates for Thornhill Ward in the 1982 Islington Borough Council elections.

"[28] Lomas was an Independent candidate for Stroud at the 2010 United Kingdom general election advocating a referendum on EU membership, reviews of NHS middle management, and stricter immigration controls.