Jonathan Schneer - Labours Conscience: The Labour Left, 1945-51

Volume 30

JONATHAN SCHNEER

First published in 1988 by Unwin Hyman

This edition first published in 2019 by Routledge

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1988 Jonathan Schneer

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ISBN: 978-138-32435-0 (Set)

ISBN: 978-0-429-43443-3 (Set) (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-33176-1 (Volume 30) (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-44709-9 (Volume 30) (ebk)

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JONATHAN SCHNEER

Boston

UNWIN HYMAN

London Sydney Wellington

To my father

Jonathan Schneer, 1988

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First published in 1988

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Schneer, Jonathan.

Labours Conscience.

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

1. Labour Party (Great Britain) 2. SocialismGreat

Britain. 3. Great BritainPolitics and government19451964. I. Title.

JN1129.L32S36 1988 324.24107 87-17470

ISBN 0-04-942193-X (alk. paper)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Schneer, Jonathan

Labours conscience: the Labour Left, 194551

1. Labour party (Great Britain)History

I. Title

324.2410709 JN1129 L32

ISBN 0-04-942193-X

Typeset in 10 on 12 point Bembo by Word Capture, Salford, and printed in Great Britain by Biddles of Guildford.

Labours Conscience: The Labour Left, 194551 analyzes the attitudes and activities of a critical force in modern British politics during a period that proved decisive in the history of Labour and the British Left generally. Inevitably it emphasizes events in Westminster, but it attempts to indicate the role of the Labour Left in the trade unions and constituencies as well.

Perhaps I should state at the outset that I am aware of the difficulties in using the term Labour Left During 194551 the Labour Left never was an organized force. It had no formal membership. For the most part the men and women who may be said to have belonged to it considered themselves first and foremost members of the Labour Party. If they were critical of some of the policies laid down by their partys leaders, often they were equally critical of each other. Moreover there were periods during Attlees premiership when the Labour Left was inactive and virtually silentwhen, in fact, some might have been tempted to question whether it existed at all. It is one of the main purposes of this book, however, to show that it did existas a tendency, if not as a coherent, easily delimited political groupand that its experiences and evolution during the early postwar era constitute a vital chapter in the history of the British Left and of the Labour Party as well.

My interest in the subject flows from my previous scholarly work which focused on the labor and socialist movements in Britain during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Few of Labours pioneers lived to see the Attlee governments, and while researching and writing a biography of the dockers leader, Ben Tillett, I often wondered what he and his contemporaries would have thought of them. The present volume, which, of course, makes no attempt to provide answers to such anachronistic musings, nevertheless was sparked by them.

If my interest in the early postwar years stemmed in part from my studies of a previous generation of Labour leaders, I was led to examine them too by my efforts to understand the continuing drama which the Labour Party has offered up for public viewing ever since I began to follow British politics. As a result of my studies I have come to believe that the thoughts and actions of the Labour Left of 194551 offer crucial insights into Labour history of the pre-and post-World War II eras.

Over the years during which I have been occupied with this project, so many people have helped me that it is impossible to mention them all by name. I want at the outset to express my gratitude to Yale University, Georgia State University and the American Council of Learned Societies for financial assistance and for making possible time off from my teaching responsibilities. Without their support this book could never have been written.

While carrying on my research, archivists and librarians all over Britain provided me with unstinting assistance. I wish particularly to thank Stephen Bird, the Labour Party archivist; Norman Higson of Hull University; Tommy Marshall, local history librarian of the Gateshead Public Library; Dr Angela Raspin of the British Library of Political and Economic Science; and Richard Storey of the Modern Records Centre at Warwick University. Professor John Saville and Dr Joyce Bellamy generously opened the files of their Dictionary of Labour Biography to me; and Andrew Roth and Judy Tench most generously permitted me to use their own Parliamentary Profiles files which they have compiled over the years. Theirs is not an archive usually available to historians, and I am most grateful to them for permitting me to benefit from their hard work.

Then there were many who experienced at first hand the events described in this volume, and who proved willing to tell me about them. I learned much from interviews with Austin Albu, Lord Brockway, Lord Davies of Leek, Michael Foot, Lord Hale, E. R. Millington, Ian Mikardo and Lord Strauss. I am particularly grateful to Mr Albu and to Lord Hale for allowing me to view papers of the period which were in their possession, and for their hospitality. I wish, too, to acknowledge the generosity of Stephen Solley, who made his fathers scrap-book available to me, and of Inigo Bing, who shared memories and insights into his fathers political career with me. And I will never forget the helpfulness of Jim Murray, who induced some veterans of the Gateshead labor movement to reminisce in my presence about their first postwar Labour MP, Konni Zilliacus. I want, too, to acknowledge in print my gratitude to John Grigg, with whom I have often discussed various aspects of this work, and from whose insights and knowledge I have never failed to profit.