The Labour Party Also by Brian Brivati ANEURIN BEVAN BY MICHAEL FOOT (editor, single-volume centenary edition) THE CONTEMPORARY HISTORY HANDBOOK (editor with Anthony Sheldon and Julia Buxton) THE GROUP (with Michael Summerskill) FROM RECONSTRUCTION TO INTEGRATION, BRITAIN AND EUROPE SINCE 1945 (editor with Harriet Jones) HUGH GAITSKELL LORD GOODMAN NEW LABOUR IN POWER: Precedents and Prospects (editor with Tim Bale) THE POLITICAL JOURNALISM OF PETER JENKINS (editor with Richard Cockett) WHAT DIFFERENCE DID THE WAR MAKE? (editor with Harriet Jones) Also by Richard Heff ernan DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY: Inside Kinnock's Labour Party (with Mike Marqusee) NEW LABOUR AND THATCHERISM: Political Change in Britain The Labour Party A Centenary History Edited by Brian Brivati Reader in History Kingston University and Richard Heffernan Lecturer in Politics Open University Foreword by Tony Blair Preface by Michael Foot & First published in Great Britain 2000 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-333-74650-9 ISBN 978-0-230-59558-3 00110.1057/9780230595583 First published in the United States of America 2000 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, LLC, Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Labour Party: a centenary history I !edited by I Brian Brivati and Richard Heffernan. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. I. Labour Party (Great Britain)-History. I. Brivati, Brian. II. Heffernan, Richard. JNI129.L32 L245 2000 324.24107-dc21 00-027833 Introduction. selection and editorial matter © Brian Brivati and Richard Heffernan 2000 Preface © Michael Foot 2000 Foreword © Tony Blair 2000 Text © Macmillan Press Ltd 2000 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-333-74649-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P OLP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 0 I 00 This volume is dedicated to the memory of Jill Craigie a socialist and feminist inspiration. This page intentionally left blank Contents Notes on Contributors ix Preface xi Michael Foot Foreword xvii Tony Blair Acknowledgements xxii Part I: Labour's First Century Introduction 1 Brian Brivati and Richard Heffernan Out of the bowels of the Movement: The Trade Unions and the Origins of the Labour Party 1900-18 8 Robert Taylor Labour In and Out of Government, 1923-1935 50 Keith Laybourn The Attlee Years, 1935-1955 68 Kevin Jefferys The Age of Wilson 1955-1979 87 Lewis Baston The Wilderness Years, 1979-1994 112 Eric Shaw From Old to New Labour, 1994-2000 143 Martin J Smith Part II: Centenary Reflections In Defence of New Labour 163 Denis Healey The Legacy of the SDP 166 David Owen A Tory View of 1964-70 170 John Biffen The Challenge of Co-operation 172 Calum MacDonald The Global Future 176 Clare Short Reinterpreting Labour's History of Failure 178 Austin Mitchell An End of Century Report Card 183 Angela Eagle Vlll Contents Part III: Themes in Labour's First Century Trade Union Freedom and the Labour Party: Arthur Deakin, Frank Cousins and the Transport and General Workers Union 1945-1964 187 Robert Taylor Norms and Blocks: Trade Unions and the Labour Party since 1964 220 Steve Ludlam Leaders and Followers: The Politics of the Parliamentary Labour Party 246 Richard Heffernan Crimes and Misdemeanours: Managing Dissent in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Labour Party 268 Tim Bale Labour's Constitution and Public Ownership: From 'Old' Clause Four to New' Clause Four 292 Tudor Jones A 'miracle of polities': the rise of Labour, 1900-45 322 Andrew Chadwick 'The future Labour offered': industrial modernisation projects in the British Labour Party from Gaitskell to Blair 346 Brian Brivati Labour's international policy: A story of conflict and contention 363 Dan Keohane Beyond Euro-Scepticism? Labour and the European Union since 1945 383 Richard Heffernan Questions of Gender: Labour and Women 402 Christine Collette Labour and Welfare Politics 422 Nick Ellison Labour Local Government 1900-1999 449 Lewis Baston Labour's literary dominance 485 Brian Brivati Index 503 Notes on Contributors Tim Bale, Lecturer in Politics, Victoria University of Wellington Lewis Baston, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Society and Politics, Kingston University Lord Biffen, former Conservative Cabinet Minister Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party. Brian Brivati, Reader in Modern British History, Kingston University. Andrew Chadwick, Lecturer in Politics and Research Fellow of the Centre for Social and Economic Research, The University of the West of England. Christine Collette, Lecturer in Politics, Edge Hill College Angela Eagle, Labour MP for Wallasey Nick Ellison, Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy, University of Durham Rt Hon Michael Foot, leader of the Labour Party 1980-83 Rt Hon Lord Healey, deputy leader of the Labour Party, 1980-83 Richard Heffernan, Lecturer in Politics, Open University Kevin Jefferys, Reader in History, University of Plymouth Tudor Jones, Senior Lecturer in Politics at Coventry University Dan Keohane, Lecturer in International Relations, Keele University Keith Laybourn, Professor of History, University of Huddersfield Steve Ludlam, Lecturer in Politics, University of Sheffield Calum MacDonald, Labour MP for Western Isles Austin Mitchell, Labour MP for Grimsby Rt Hon Lord Owen CH, leader of the SDP 1983-90 Eric Shaw, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Stirling Rt Hon Clare Short MP, Secretary of State for International Development Martin J. Smith, Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield Robert Taylor, Employment Editor, Financial Times This page intentionally left blank Preface Rt Hon Michael Foot How much can new Labour learn from the old? Not much, according to some of the new leaders, except what pitfalls or renewed follies to avoid. Latter-day wisdom, the proper interpretation of present-day opportunities, has given our party the chance to shape the future for decades ahead. But others may still object: true reading of history has been our best guide hitherto. We shall cast aside this advice at our peril: our most unforgivable failure at such a moment would be to set our sights too low. Labour's Museum of Labour History - like the hundred-year- old Labour Party itself- has had what the sports-writers used to call a chequered career - when the beloved home team has formed the habit of conceding valuable home points to unscrupulous visitors: sometimes we have faced the future with a glorious confidence as in 1945 and now, but sometimes confronting the possibility of absolute extinction. These lapses were not always proof of a serious moral or political failure. Sometimes the bravest choices were taken by leaders or groups of their steadfast followers at the moments of supreme anguish. New departures for Labour were frequently sought before the present system of testing opinion was so skilfully devised by the present leaders or their spin-doctors. My own first encounters with the directors of the Museum of Labour History happened at a period when the history of the party itself looked a good deal brighter than its prospects. We were in the middle of one of those constantly recurring epochs when the Labour Party, according to the pundits, had made itself unelectable. Throughout the century, these periods have been much more frequent than latter-day experts have been willing to acknowledge, and maybe, in the depths of these moments of dejection which did seem unbreakable, the leaders or the led would take refuge in romantic reconstructions offering no sure escape from existing perils. However, Oscar Wilde once insisted, in his essay on the future of socialism, that a map which did not include Utopia was not worth having. xii The Labour Party: A Centenary History The Museum itself was operating then in a most suitable, indeed a uniquely appropriate environment, the Limehouse Town Hall, which had been controlled for generations by Labour councils who naturally offered it sustained support. Especially this was so in the pre-1914 period when one of the leaders of that council was the lion-hearted George Lansbury. He had launched his campaigns there on behalf of the poorest members of the community, and a few other causes hardly less commendable, such as the rights of women and the claims of subject peoples against British imperialism. For me and those of us of a slightly earlier generation, Lansbury had a special appeal: he led the modern revolt against the iniquities of a the old poor law, both before 1914 and again in the 1930s when the same kind of bureaucratic persecutions were even less excusably applied. Thus, thanks to the initiative of the first Labour councils, thanks to Lansbury, Limehouse had a resonance throughout the whole Labour movement. All the more were we aggrieved when an ill- named Liberal caucus took temporary control of the Poplar Council, and informed us that there would be no more financial favours for the occupants of Limehouse Town Hall.