Liberal Imperialists

[1] The group adopted a formal identity under the title "The Imperial Liberal Council", the inaugural meeting of which was held on 10 April 1900 at the Westminster Palace Hotel.

[8] The grouping came to prominence shortly after the failed Jameson Raid in 1895 and prior to the outbreak of the Boer war four years later, as tensions between Britain’s South African colonies and its neighbours increased.

Its leaders were members of the parliamentary Liberal Party – then in opposition – who supported the imperialist aspects of Lord Salisbury's Conservative government’s foreign policy.

This stood in contrast to the radical wing of the parliamentary Liberal Party, whose prominent members included former leader William Harcourt, John Morley and David Lloyd George.

Proponents often use the term to criticize Democratic Party foreign policy, calling it a form of cultural imperialism.