Origins of Lib-Lab division.
| Author | Thorpe, Andrew |
| Position | Features |
The formation of a Conservative-Liberal Coalition government in Britain has been seen as a remarkable development, for all kinds of reasons.
Long-forgotten Prime Ministers have been hauled in to give evidence one way or another on what its exponents have described as a remarkable experiment in politics. Disraeli's stricture that England does not love coalitions has been matched with references to wartime coalitions under Asquith, Lloyd George and Churchill. Ed Balls repeatedly invoked Ramsay MacDonald in a strong performance in a Newsnight discussion with Michael Gove on 5 July.
One aspect of the remarkableness of the new government has been the claim that it reflects some kind of historic turn in Liberalism--that a party which has been historically of the centre-left has now moved rightwards. (Indeed, its centrality to a government that promises to be as right-wing as any since 1945 in terms of cuts and their intended victims suggests it has moved a long way). When viewed in historical context, however, the shift is less remarkable than it might seem.
The misplaced 'progressive alliance'
The idea that there was a lost opportunity for closer Lib-Lab cooperation has been present ever since Labour emerged as a major force in British politics during the First World War. Perhaps the most significant single act in this story was Labour's adoption, in 1918, of a new party constitution which in effect declared Labour a socialist party. For its critics, this was a wilful act of political sectarianism, driven by socialist extremists and trade unions infected by what Roy Jenkins once called 'an aggressive and intolerant proletarianism' (Jenkins, 1979, 29). By these actions, it is alleged, an unnecessary division was erected that helped to ensconce the Conservatives in power for virtually the whole of the inter-war period, and to give them a flying start in the competition for votes at most elections thereafter.
But since the 1970s there has been very considerable support for the notion that the two parties were essentially two sides of a common progressive movement. It is not hard to see why this should have been the case. The revival, from the 1970s, of third-party/centre-party politics in Britain was matched by increasing interest in the opportunities for realignment of 'progressive' forces of the centre-left. There was now greater focus on the idea that the conscious erection of barriers to cooperation between Labour and the Liberals caused huge problems, not least the division of the radical forces in British politics and, consequently, the creation, almost by default, of a long period of Conservative hegemony.
Such a view was, of course, given a huge boost by wider developments in the 1980s and 1990s. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of Communism in all but its most remote hideouts, the apparent removal of socialism from the political menu, and the reining in of militant trade unionism under years of Conservative government, all combined to remove sticking points between Labour and those to its immediate political right.
In the 1990s, Labour's leader, Tony Blair, repeatedly stressed his belief that his personal politics, and those of New Labour more generally, derived not just from Labour's own history, but from a broader 'progressive' tradition which included Liberals every bit as much as Labourites: as he said in 1995, Labour needed to 'value the contribution of Lloyd George, Beveridge and Keynes and not just Attlee, Bevan or Crosland'. Labour people should 'welcome the radical left-of-centre tradition outside our own party, as well as celebrating the achievements of that tradition within it' (Blair, 1995, 7). To some extent, this can be seen as a clever re-application of an old Labour tactic--flattering Liberal traditions in order to appeal to ordinary Liberals over the heads of their leaders. Nonetheless, the fact that Blair took the process to such significant lengths, including even a series of clandestine meetings with the Liberal Democrat leader, Paddy Ashdown, about a possible coalition, suggests that he was, in the period up to the 1997 election at least, convinced by the case for a renewed 'progressive alliance'.
At the same time, there has been renewed focus in historical writing on the earlier period of 'progressive alliance'. Since the 1980s, much of the most important work on the politics of the two or three decades before 1914 has tended to stress the continuities of progressive politics in Edwardian Britain. In the place of older, 'heroic' visions, which had represented the coming of the Labour Party as the culmination, and inevitable by-product, of the rise of the working class, this new work emphasised the contingent nature of Labour's pre-war advance; the continuing vitality of the Liberal Party and Liberalism; and the extent to which the two parties were still able to muddle along together in a largely informal, but nonetheless real, 'progressive alliance'. This was the main message of David Marquand's The Progressive Dilemma, for example (Marquand, 1992).
However, this article--based on extensive research conducted on all levels of both parties--suggests that the obstacles to cooperation in the period between 1918 and 1945 were even greater than has been generally recognised. They were, in fact, so significant as effectively to rule out Lib-Lab collaboration, let alone any kind of 'progressive alliance'. This, in turn, will help us to understand better how easily Liberal Democrats could get into bed with Conservatives today.
Liberal-Labour relations 1914-45
Argument has continued, and will continue, about the extent to which the 'progressive alliance' was fracturing prior to 1914. But it is beyond doubt that it did not survive the Great War.
Liberal progressivism was becalmed, not least because its main cabinet advocate, David Lloyd George, was sucked into the war effort, first as Chancellor of the Exchequer, then as Minister of Munitions and Secretary of State for War, before he effectively broke with the Liberal Party altogether to become Prime Minister of a coalition government in December 1916. Many other progressive Liberals were marginalised by their criticism of the war. So the less progressive elements of the party reasserted themselves strongly.
Labour's hopes were raised by the expansion of trade union membership, and by an apparently increased appetite, and potential, for greater state power. At the same time, the fears of at least some of its leaders were stirred by the introduction of compulsory military service, and talk of industrial conscription, as well as by the development of radical, anti-democratic revolutionary movements in Russia after February Revolution of 1917. Many of Labour's leaders now expected some kind of swing to the left to take place after the war. In one sense, they welcomed this: it offered them opportunities. But they also saw that the divided and discredited Liberals were in no state even to try to exploit the expected leftwards surge. If Labour did not therefore step into the breach, then the moment might well be seized by far left revolutionaries with no interest in the kind of 'ordered progress' which characterised the thinking of Labour's leading strategists and intellectuals.
Accordingly, those strategists supported the adoption of a new party constitution in 1918. This constitution gave the trade unions, as a whole, more influence over the party than ever before. But it also declared the intention of building up the party in every part of Britain, through the introduction of Constituency Labour Parties with individual membership; and, most famously in retrospect, it committed the party to socialism through what became known as 'Clause IV'.
The adoption of a socialist commitment was notable in the context of this article because it marked, and was meant to mark, a clear dividing line with the Liberals: a line that Liberals could not cross, without becoming socialists and thereby renouncing their Liberalism. It was made clear that Liberals who did make this renunciation would be welcome. But it was equally clear that they must come in on Labour's, and not their own, terms. And, of course, many Liberals did make such a move. No undergraduate essay on the subject is complete without the requisite list of...
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