This book marks the first comprehensive study of the British Conservative party during the struggle over Home Rule between 1912 and 1914. A struggle in which the Tories, rather than see Ireland achieve self-governing status along similar lines to Canada, Australia and South Africa, eschewed constitutional precedents, destabilised the British state, encouraged civil disobedience and fomented Ireland's drift into civil war. The purpose of this work is to explain how and why these extraordinary actions occurred.