The passing of the Reform Bill in 1832 did little to ease the tensions since the widened franchise produced a reforming parliament in which the more radical members obviously had ecclesiastical abuses in their sights as part of a very wide-ranging programme. Many dissenters campaigned for the disestablishment of the Church of England and the Government's decision to merge ten dioceses of the Church of Ireland with their neighbours was seen as a serious threat to the Church of England when carried into effect by the Church Temporalities (Ireland) Act 1833. It was the direct cause of John Keble's famous assize sermon on "National Apostasy" at Oxford the following year and this in its turn led to the Tractarian Movement. By 1834 the tensions between dissenters and churchmen had reached unprecedented levels, probably because the dissenters sensed that the Church of England would cling to its remaining privileges.