The immediate purpose of the repeal of the Corn Laws was to help the Irish peasantry caught in the grip of the potato famine.

ECONOMIST: Ireland and Gladstone and all that

Its unilateral move towards free trade began at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and culminated in the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.

ECONOMIST: Business books (5)

James Forsyth, in the Spectator, says the speech may end up leaving the Conservatives "more deeply split" than at any time since the repeal of the Corn Laws in the 1840s.

BBC: UK Politics