University of Huddersfield Repository Webb, Michelle The rise and fall of the Labour league of youth Original Citation Webb, Michelle (2007) The rise and fall of the Labour league of youth. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/761/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. 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For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ THE RISE AND FALL OF THE LABOUR LEAGUE OF YOUTH Michelle Webb A thesis submitted to the University of Huddersfield in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Huddersfield July 2007 The Rise and Fall of the Labour League of Youth Abstract This thesis charts the rise and fall of the Labour Party’s first and most enduring youth organisation, the Labour League of Youth. The history of the League, from its birth in the early nineteen twenties to its demise in the late nineteen fifties, is placed in the context of the Labour Party’s subsequent fruitless attempts to establish and maintain a vibrant and functional youth organisation. A narrative is incorporated that illuminates the culture, organisation and political activism of the League and establishes it as a predominantly working class radical organisation. The reluctance on the part of the Labour Party to grant autonomy to its youth sections resulted in the history of the League of Youth being one of control, suppression and tension. This state of affairs ensured that subsequent youth groups, the Young Socialists and Young Labour, would be established in an atmosphere of reservation and scepticism. The thesis places the prime responsibility for the failure of the party’s youth organisations with the party leadership but also considers the contributory factors of changing social and political circumstances. A number of themes are explored which include the impact of structure and agency factors, the power of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the political socialisation of leading figures within the party, the social context in which each of the groups emerged and the extent to which the youth groups were prey to intra-party factionalism. The thesis redresses the balance of research where most accounts have focussed on the Young Socialists and traces the common characteristics that are prevalent in the way the party leadership has approached its relationship with its youth organisations. Use has been made of previously unpublished primary source material, the major source being the League of Youth members themselves whose recollections have helped to demonstrate the arguments put forward in this thesis. Michelle Webb July 2007 Contents Key Dates in the History of the Labour Party’s Youth Organisation ii The Quantity and Nature of Documentary Sources iii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Framework of Analysis 9 Introduction 9 Power in the Labour Party 10 Factionalism 17 Socialisation 21 Structure and agency 22 Chapter 3 A Difficult Birth 29 Introduction 29 Precursors 29 Domestic and foreign models 30 Labour women 32 The role of the Labour Party 35 Conclusion 40 i Chapter 4 What did you do in the League? 42 Introduction 42 Labour Party support 42 Accommodation 43 Social activities 44 Political activities 46 Individual members 49 Youth rallies 54 Conclusion 55 Chapter 5 First League of Youth 57 Introduction 57 The political backdrop 57 How old is youth? 58 What sort of organisation? 62 The impact of the Spanish Civil War 69 Growing party discontent 71 The legacy 76 Socialism, the Labour Party and the League in the 1930s 80 Conclusion 82 ii Chapter 6 The Second League of Youth 85 Introduction 85 The political context 85 Grass roots momentum and the party response 87 Second League of Youth: growth and tension 89 Decline of the second League of Youth: 1951-1959 97 Social change 100 Conclusion 107 Chapter 7 The Labour League of Youth in the West Riding of Yorkshire including a case study of Huddersfield 112 Introduction 112 Political and economic background 112 Politics and personalities in the region 113 The birth and growth of the League in Huddersfield and the West Riding 115 Local party commitment 121 Relationship between the League and the local party 125 Links with communists 128 Decline of the League in Huddersfield and the West Riding 132 Conclusion 133 iii Chapter 8 Young Socialists to Young Labour 136 Introduction 136 The birth of the Young Socialists 136 Early signs of discontent 138 Militant 142 Reasons for failure 144 Young Labour 145 Views of Young Labour activists 146 A case study of Young Labour activism at regional level 149 Signs of discontent 152 Party response 155 Attempts by New Labour to appeal to youth 157 Single-issue politics 158 The future of Young Labour 162 United Kingdom Youth Parliament 164 Conclusion 166 Chapter 9 Conclusion 170 Bibliography 177 Appendix 190 iv Key Dates in the History of the Labour Party’s Youth Movement 1924 Labour Party annual conference launched The Scheme for the Organisation of Youth under which the first Labour League of Youth was established. 1938 First Labour League of Youth disbanded. 1939-45 Second World War. 1945 Labour government Second Labour League of Youth established. 1955 League of Youth disbanded and reverted to youth sections under control of local parties. 1959 Youth commission set up to discuss future of Labour youth. 1960 Young Socialists established. 1965 Young Socialists renamed Labour Party Young Socialists (LPYS). 1986 Labour Party, led by Neil Kinnock, re-organised LPYS in order to root out Militant. 1993 Labour Party conference in Brighton supported motion to set up Young Labour. v Documentary Sources The author’s interest in the Labour League of Youth pre-dates the start of the thesis by several years while the knowledge of its existence stretches back to childhood. It is one of the many narratives and recollections with which the sons and daughters of working class Labour activists will be familiar. Yet, the history is barely known beyond these circles. This is the first time, to the author’s knowledge, that primary and secondary material has been used, in conjunction with oral interviews, to form a study of the entire history of the Labour League of Youth. It is also the case that some of the primary material itself has been used for the first time, for instance the League of Youth material relating to Newport, held at the University of Wales and the complete minute books of the Huddersfield League of Youth, which are used to support the case study of that area. The history of the Labour Party is well documented in academic literature, biographies and autobiographies; nonetheless, while this secondary material has been valuable in setting the work in context, few mention the League of Youth. Pimlott, in Labour and the Left in the 1930s1, gives perhaps the most detailed account of the conflict between the League of Youth and the party surrounding the united and popular front movements in which the League played a role. It was not however the intention of Pimlott’s study to analyse the reasons why the League of Youth was involved in these and subsequent movements. Layton-Henry’s 1976 work, Labour’s Lost Youth2, is possibly the only published study of the Labour youth movement. The work provides a critique of the attitude of the Labour Party towards its youth organisation, and its failure to sustain both the League of Youth and the Young Socialists. The study nevertheless does not provide an insight into the character of the League of Youth and ignores the effects on young people of the changes in society, particularly after the Second World War. The Labour Party and the Recruitment of the Young, 1945-703, a recent study by Fielding, makes a convincing case for the effect of social change on youth recruitment but fails to make adequate use of oral evidence. Betty Boothroyd is unique among politicians in that her autobiography gives an account of her time in the League of Youth and the effect it had on her future career but it is descriptive and possesses little analytical value.4 Nevertheless, the narrative of the rise and fall of a series of youth organisations is valid only when it illuminates facets of the history of British politics and the character of the vi Labour Party itself. For that reason, a number of classic works on the history of party and British politics have also been consulted, as have publications that are more theoretical on such related themes as the debate about structure and agency, social change and its political impact, and factionalism. These works are listed in the bibliography. The dearth of published work on the history of Labour’s youth movements means that the thesis has relied heavily on primary source material. The reader will note that throughout the thesis the structure and procedures of Labour Party meetings, mirrored in the League of Youth, come up for much criticism.