Liberal Party split of 1940

Sofia Westergaard, leader of the social democratic faction

Julius Mathiesen, leader of the classical liberal faction

The Liberal Party split of 1940, also known as the Westergaard split, was a political schism within the Delkoran Liberal Party in 1940. It was caused by severe divisions between the party's social democratic and classical liberal factions, and engineered by Chancellor Sofia Westergaard. It ended with the expulsion of the classical liberal faction from the party, which instead formed the Reform Party.

After the 1940 Federal Election returned a hung parliament, Westergaard announced her intention to continue her Liberal–National Labor coalition, seeking additional support from the Left Republicans. The classical liberal faction, led by Mathiesen, revolted, preferring to support a Conservative–Agrarian government. Westergaard escalated the dispute into an outright split, provoking the classical liberals' defection to Reform, an intervention by the Federal Constitutional Court, and a snap election which brought Veidnar Albendor's Conservative–Agrarian–Reform government to power.

The split was a pivotal event in Delkoran politics and the ultimate collapse of the second party system. Although initially disastrous for the Liberal Party, Westergaard succeeded in transforming it into a social democratic party, repositioning it as an ally of National Labor. It experienced a subsequent resurgence, returning to office in coalition with National Labor in 1975 and regaining its plurality in 2014. By contrast, Reform faded away quickly, dropping out of parliament in 1952 and later merging with the Centre Party to form the Union of Technocrats and Reformists in 1985.

Terminology

Conventionally known as the "Liberal Party split of 1940" (Delkoran: Liberale Partisplit i 1940), the event is also referred by several nicknames: the "20 days' chaos" (20 dages kaos), "Westergaard Axe" (Westergøkse), "Westergaard Sword" (Sværdstergaard), and the "Westergaard Blow" (Westerslag).

Background

The Liberal Party's role as centrist kingmaker during the second party system had seen it gradually decline in influence, pressured from the left by the emergence of National Labor. By the 1920s, two main factions had emerged within the party:

• Venstre (left) — the social democratic faction, favouring government intervention to address economic and social issues.
• Højre (right) — the classical liberal faction, favouring traditional priorities of limited government and low taxation.

A tradition of alternating leaders from both factions for balance saw the Liberals participate in both left and right coalition governments under Niels Frederiksen, Olav Brøndum, Ingeborg Hansen, and Valdemar Kjeldsen.

Sofia Westergaard, a leading social democrat and minister of trade in the Ingeborg Hansen government, became party leader in early 1932. Assailing the Liberals' status as "eternal junior coalition partners", she advanced a leftist platform calling for expansion of the welfare state and public works programs. The Liberals won the 1932 and 1936 Federal Elections, and Westergaard became Chancellor, heading a coalition with National Labor.

As Chancellor, Westergaard pursued a leftist agenda that included large-scale infrastructure programs and the introduction of a single-payer healthcare system. Although she had significant success in implementing these programs, they often faced opposition from Højre MPs and relied on support from National Labor and other leftist parties to pass.

The coalition deepened the party's left–right division. Højre began to organise under Mathiesen. They feared the loss of the party's traditional centrist role, and resolved to challenge Westergaard at the earliest opportunity. They were notably alarmed by Westergaard's forcefulness in pushing through her policies, including pressuring the states to carry out reform of local government, withholding all funding from one state to the point of causing riots and the collapse of its government to secure implementation of universal healthcare, and carrying out high-profile tax evasion prosecutions and similar legal harassment of wealthy opponents.

In a campaign speech in Izenhoth in 1940, Mathiesen decried what he called the "corruption" of the Liberal Party by "an alliance of communists, syndicalists, and trade unionists", saying: "Our party is, in its origins, a party that supports the right of individuals to pursue, without government interference, such course in their lives as they deem fit. This is fundamentally at odds with the socialist vision espoused by the radicals now infiltrating our ranks."

Parliamentary prelude

The 1940 Federal Election returned a hung parliament. The Liberals lost ground and finished second, behind the Conservatives and ahead of National Labor. However, the Conservative–Agrarian bloc could not muster a majority alone, even with outside support from the Moderates. The position of the Liberals was thus crucial to determining the next government.

Westergaard announced she intended to continue the Liberal–NL coalition and seek outside support from the anti-monarchist and socialist Left Republicans. This proved to be the last straw for the Højre faction: Mathiesen announced in response the right-liberals would oppose the coalition with a "radical" party.

In the first investiture vote on 12 August, Højre carried through their threat: they voted against the party line, causing Westergaard's government to be rejected. Conservative leader Veidnar Albendor was given an exploratory mandate to form a government.

Showdown

Incensed by the rebellion, Westergaard decided to use the dispute to rid herself of Højre. She expelled their representatives from the party for voting against the party line, and reaffirmed her intention to continue as Chancellor. Chaos erupted within the Liberal Party: the Venstre members on the central committee began expelling Højre members, while Mathiesen filed suit in the Federal Constitutional Court, arguing that the expulsions were unconstitutional, and simultaneously announced a leadership challenge.

Although Albendor moved to form a cabinet, King Gunnar II feared a constitutional crisis. He chose to suspend parliament until the constitutionality of the expulsions could be ascertained and asked the Federal Constitutional Court to expedite consideration of Mathiesen's lawsuit. Albendor was privately critical of the suspension, but made no comment in public.

After weeks of deliberation in Mathiesen v. Westergaard, the Court upheld Westergaard's expulsions on 3 September. It ruled that the representatives had defied the platform voters had voted on in the election, therefore their expulsion was justified by the principle of proportional representation. It criticised the expulsion of Højre from electoral lists to ensure Venstre would replace them in parliament, but found it lawful.

Outraged by the ruling, Mathiesen led the Højre faction to break away from the Liberal Party and set up the Reform Party. Westergaard easily fended off the leadership challenge, and additional expulsions and departures took place as Højre members continued to defect to Reform.

Parliament reconvened on 4 September, with the Højre representatives now replaced with Venstre ones. Albendor's proposed coalition was rejected, the Liberals voting with National Labor against it. Westergaard prepared to put forward her coalition proposal again, while Reform protested against the expulsions.

Election dénouement

The impasse ended when 10 days passed without a new government, and Parliament was automatically dissolved for a snap election on 15 September.

The election was overshadowed by the split and came to be heavily polarised. Albendor attacked Westergaard's "authoritarianism" and used red-baiting tactics against the Liberal–NL bloc. Westergaard condemned the attempted "sabotage" of Reform and led a vocal campaign to rally the Liberal faithful.

The election ended with a swing to the right. Reform initially captured a greater share of the Liberals' previous support, from supporters alarmed by Westergaard's actions. The Liberals were mauled, dropping to 10% of the vote. Additionally, the split tore through the party in the states, causing most delegates to the Chamber of Nobles to defect to Reform.

Legacy

The split initially appeared to be a disaster for the Liberals. Most Delkoran commentators assumed they had destroyed their chances of being in government again; a few even predicted the extinction of the party.

Westergaard was now firmly in control of the Liberals. She rallied supporters with defiant speeches, and threw the party fully into its new identity as a centre-left party. The party's revised constitution and subsequent election platforms embraced the radical turn, harnessing its traditional preoccupation with individual liberty to advocate greater regulation and economic interventionism. Westergaard denounced Albendor's tax cuts, deregulation, and cuts to welfare, and during the 1950s depression called for aggressive action to combat poverty and unemployment.

The Liberals were now firmly aligned with National Labor. Buoyed by the rallying figure of Westergaard and a new generation of members, the party steadily rebuilt and increased its support at the federal and state levels. By contrast, Reform quickly entered a downward spiral: they lacked a distinctive identity once in coalition with the Conservatives, and were mired in leadership struggles after Mathiesen's resignation. Their association with Albendor's government in the run-up to the depression made them a target for voters' ire.

The Liberals surpassed Reform in 1948, and at the 1952 Federal Election Reform lost all its seats, falling short of the electoral threshold. Their support continued to shrink to a small core, and they later merged with the Centre Party to form the Union of Technocrats and Reformists in 1985, which has remained outside federal or state legislatures since.

Westergaard remained unrepentant and sharp-witted about her role in the split, describing it as a matter of "clearing out some deadwood." Having become the longest-serving party leader in Delkoran politics, she retired in 1959, appointed by Mette Elvensar to head the Federal Public Works Commission. The Liberal revival continued under her successor Osvald Bjerg, who entered a coalition with National Labor in 1975, and culminated in the Liberals regaining their plurality within Adric Azengaard's traffic light coalition.

The split was a defining moment in Delkoran politics. It was the first crack in the edifice of the second party system: the purging and later eclipse of the classical liberal faction allowed the social democrats to reshape the Liberal Party in their image, turning them from centrist kingmakers to reliable partners for National Labor. The split made it easier for middle class voters torn between loyalty to Liberal or Reform to later join the "Elvensar Coalition".

It had mixed consequences regarding the independence of parliamentarians. Although the Court's ruling ostensibly strengthened party discipline, the extreme nature of Westergaard's actions and the lengthy "desert crossing" endured to rebuild the Liberal Party deterred other party leaders from a similar course. Fear of causing a similarly devastating split has shaped the tensions of the modern Conservative Party between the moderate New Conservatives and the traditionalist right.

The memory of the split played a role in Adric Azengaard's challenges against Rengar Thomassen for the Liberal leadership in 2006 and 2010. Azengaard stated, "How can the party that cleaved itself with the Westergøkse on the principle of working with the Left Republicans suddenly draw a line at working with the Green Party?".

The split remains well-known in Delkoran society and culture. It inspired the expression "Westergaard's chance" (Westergaards chance), referring to battle against all odds that ultimately ends in success after great sacrifice. When Akashi was affected by the neoliberal conspiracy, Delkoran commentators likened the conflict between the moderate Ran Tsukuda and neoliberal Ichirō Kondō to the Liberal split. Similar comparisons were made for the Gylian NB–UFP split of 1989.