National Liberal Party

The National-Liberal Party is a political party in Austrasia formed in 1956 from a union of a number of right-wing parties including the aristocratic Liberal-Conservative Party and Christian populist Gothic Farmer's Union with the intention of challenging the post-war political dominance of the Justice Party. Starting in the 1970's NLP candidates achieved an extended string of electoral successes in the People's Assembly whittling away the Justice Parties 50-year Senate majority, a process that was completed in 1991 with the high-profile defection of seven Justice Party-aligned senators to the NLP caucus. In contemporary Austrasia, the National-Liberal Party is considered to be politically dominant, the NLP caucus having maintained a plurality in the Senate and a majority in the Directory for 28 consecutive years.

=Ideology & Influence=

Lex talionis
The NLP styles itself as a law-and-order party, a sentiment which is captured in the party's charter: "If you slander another, you slander yourself; if you steal from another, you steal from yourself; if you strike another, you strike yourself; if you kill another, you kill yourself." The NLP has consistently promoted policies aimed at promoting including a formal Senate resolution endorsing the book Contrareparatio, considered the magnum opus of the arch-conservative Lawspeaker Cuthrad Lachsau, which argued forcefully that the sole legitimate principle of criminal justice was the punishment of the offender in proportion to the severity of their crime and according to the degree of their culpability. The NLP ended a moratorium on the death penalty in 1977 and subsequently enacted legislation expanding the scope of crimes for which it may be applied.

Hausvaeter
Originally inherited from the Christian populist Gothic Farmer's League, but drawing on the romantic nationalism of Patrizier, the principle of the Hausvaeter - the pater familias - represents the party's pledge that a nuclear family, a union between a man and his wife, represents the ideal basic unit of social organization. The NLP engaged in a broad rollback of the liberalization of family law that had occurred under the Justice Party; adultery was restored as a criminal offence for the third party, the possibility of no-fault divorce was abolished, as was the provision for civil unions of same-sex partners.

Freigeld
Since its foundation, the NLP has maintained a charter commitment to Freigeld - free money- which is defined as a currency which has a stable purchasing power, is freely convertible and serves as a stable store of value. This has put the NLP and its associated economists at odds with most contemporary schools of economic thought which favour flexible monetary policies and mild inflation but it remains a politically popular position in the Riche; according to the NLP freigeld protects the lawfully accumulated wealth of citizens and serves as a firebreak against excessive government debt.

Pragmatically the NLP has championed a form of fractional reserve banking leveraging the Riche's reserves of Gold, Silver and foreign currency as the best method to realize Freigeld. This was enshrined in the 2000 Millenium Currency Law which mandates the Riche Bank maintain reserves equal to least 1/5th of its outstanding Reichsgulden obligations in Gold, Silver and a basket of reliable FOREX reserves - in practice the currencies of Austrasia's league allies, Tiperyn and Koryeo.