As its name suggests the initial aim of the LEL was to support the British Empire and to campaign for its continuing existence. It was to be its calls for the restoration of the empire and reassertion of the notion of Britons as the world's natural leaders that ultimately saw the group become estranged from the Conservatives, as the League was increasingly divorced from the one nation conservatism that came to dominate the party. This was particularly true following the independence of Sudan and the Suez Crisis in 1956 when the Conservatives formally broke from any notion of being the party of empire.