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VII. The Emergence of C. R. Attlee as Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1935

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. Golant
W. Golant
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Extract

The 1931 General Election reduced the Parliamentary Labour Party to forty-six. Though a disappointing result, there was substantial evidence for confidence in the eventual revival of the Party; it had received over six and a half million votes and thirty per cent of the total vote cast, only seven percent less than the total vote it had received in 1929 when Labour formed a government. The departure of Ramsay MacDonald, Philip Snowden, and J. H. Thomas to join the National Government freed the Parliamentary Labour Party from the domination of an important section of its older generation. The 1931 election marked the slow transition of power from one generation to another, often an awkward moment for any political party. There was wide agreement in the party that the years after 1931 should be an interregnum period.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 1970 , pp. 318 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

1 Thurtle, E., Time's Winged Chariot (1945), p. 125.Google Scholar

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3 Attlee wrote a pamphlet for the Socialist League called Local Government and the Socialist Plan (1933). In it he wrote, ‘I associate myself with his conclusion’ referring to Cripps' conclusion in Can Socialism Come by Constitutional Methods?, p. 1. In this essay Cripps put forward some tentative suggestions about the methods of the next socialist government; the proposals were soon to earn him the label of ‘the radical red’. Some of the conclusions Cripps drew and Attlee supported were: prolonging Parliament beyond the five-year term, passing an Emergency Powers Bill through all its stages on the first day of a socialist government to allow rule by ministerial decree. There was a vague mention about a temporary socialist dictatorship, and the abolition of the House of Lords as well as Private Members' Bills.

4 C. R. Attlee and Sir S. Cripps, ‘Joint Stock Banks’, A memorandum to the Labour Party Finance and Trade Committee, January 1933, para. 16 (Dalton Papers, LSE).

5 Ibid. para. 11.

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7 Attlee, C.R., Local Government and the Socialist Plan (1933),Google Scholar pp. 1 ff. Cf. Attlee's ideas on compensation in 1927. ‘Compensation should be paid in the form of bonds or annuities equal to the ascertained value of the capital nationalised. These would bear interest at a fixed rate…’ in Lees-Smith, H., Encyclopaedia of the Labour Movement, 1 (1927), 167.Google Scholar

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9 Lord Attlee Papers used at his former home in Great Missenden are hereafter cited as CRA. The titles or dates of the documents are given if they are found in the original.

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13 Attlee was indifferent to the departure of the I.L.P. from the Labour Party since he thought they had no real policies to contribute to the party. ‘I fancy that they will lose a very high proportion of their membership. The trouble is that they have no real ideas on which to work. They talk revolution, but Brockway has the phrases and Maxton the appearance of revolutionaries but nothing more.’ Attlee to T. Attlee, 8 August 1932 (TA).

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29 Attlee's international police force was more comprehensive than the existing U.N. force. In 1934 he wrote a pamphlet, An International Police Force, where he suggested that the international force should remove the need for all existing national armies, navies and air forces. The force would be managed by a supernational authority, patrolling designated non-combatant zones. No country would have arms and thus peace would be assured. He was no doubt seeking to duplicate the circumstances in which an English policeman works, not a very realistic parallel for the Europe of 1934.

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36 CRA, ‘Chapters on the Life of the Bullion Family’.

37 CRA,'International’.

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40 Attlee to T. Attlee, 6 November 1933 (TA).

41 Daily Herald, 12 February 1934.

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45 Ibid.

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64 Sunday Times, 6 October 1935.

65 G. Hicks to C. R. Attlee, 10 October 1935 (CRA).

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