In the East Fife by-election of February 1933, the local Conservatives supported the Liberal National candidate. David Keir was nominated as an unofficial Liberal candidate in support of free trade and against the National Government; Keir lost his deposit. At a by-election in Ashford the following month, the official Liberal candidate Rev Roderick Kedward (who had defended and lost the same seat in 1931 as a Liberal National) declared that he was fighting as an Independent Liberal and would oppose the National Government if elected (which he was not). Various Liberal Party meetings and conferences during 1933 pressed the party to go into opposition; on 14 November 1933, the majority of Liberal MPs voted to do so.