Ultimately, the Secessionists planned to merge all German liberals into a single whole liberal party, hence the name Liberal Union, with liberal and parliamentary monarchist positions, modelled after the British Liberal Party and ideally to govern under a future Emperor Frederick III.[5] However, the National Liberals made clear they would not leave the majority loyal to Bismarck, therefore Secessionist representative Franz von Stauffenberg negotiated with Eugen Richter, the leader of the left liberal German Progress Party in early 1884. As early as in March 1884, both parties' legislators formed a joint parliamentary group with together 100 seats. Timely to the federal election in October, the German Free-minded Party was formed.[3] Subsequently, the parliamentary representation diminished to only 64 members of the Reichstag.