FROM CIVIL LIBERTIES TO HUMAN RIGHTS?: BRITISH CIVIL LIBERTIES ACTIVISM, 1934-1989 By CHRISTOPHER MOORES A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Modern History School of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham September 2010 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis is about organizations working in the field of British civil liberties between 1934 and 1989. It examines the relationship between the concepts of civil liberties and human rights within a British context, and discusses the forms of political activism that have accompanied this subject. At the centre of this work is an examination of the politics of the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), an organization that has played a key role in the protection and promotion of civil liberties from its formation in 1934. It also examines the activities of a range of other organizations that considered themselves to be active on such a subject. The thesis argues that thinking about civil liberties has been extended throughout the twentieth century to incorporate a more positive and broader conceptualization of rights. However, for all the increased importance of the politics of human rights, a tradition of civil liberties has remained crucial to organizations working within such a field. The thesis also seeks to demonstrate that concerns about civil liberties have often reflected the political ideologies of those acting on such issues. Whilst a large amount of conceptual agreement has existed over the importance of the subject within Britain, this has consistently been met with disagreement over what this means. NGOs have played crucial roles as mediators of such a conflict. In performing such a role, the civil liberties lobby has been characterised by a set of professional, expert activists that have, at times, been able and will to engage with radical political ideas. ii Dedication To Dad & Mum, iii Acknowledgements My thanks must first go to my supervisors Professor Matthew Hilton and Dr. Nick Crowson. They have been supportive, enthusiastic and generous with their time and thoughts. I am extremely grateful for their contributions to this work. Much support has come from members of staff, the postgraduate community and friends within Birmingham. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. James McKay and Kieran Connell who have been generous with their time and help. Various parts of this work have been discussed with audiences at two Voluntary Action History Society Conferences, the Economic History Society Annual Conference, the Centre for Contemporary British History Conference on the 1970s, and in the Modern History Seminar Series at the University Birmingham. I would like to thanks those that asked questions, offered advice and commented on these papers. I would also like to thank the editors of Twentieth Century British History for their constructive criticism of an article that appears as part of this thesis. I am grateful for the assistance of the staff at various institutions that helped me with this work. I am particularly grateful to the staff at the Hull History Centre, and those previously working at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull, who provided me with so much information and even braved floodwaters to collect material for my work. Those working at the libraries of the universities of Birmingham, Warwick, the London School of Economics, and Edinburgh have been helpful for providing numerous primary sources. The staffs at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the Public Records Office, the National Library of Scotland and the Labour History Centre in Manchester have also provided useful records. I also owe a special debt of thanks to Ben Alderson-Day, Kat Pearson, John Moores and Jane Tavener for their support in the closing stages of the work. Finally, I would like to thank all my family and my partner who have been very patient, supportive and encouraging. iv Contents List of tables images and graphs List of abbreviations Page Introduction 1-34 Civil Liberties, Human Rights and Political Activism in the Twentieth Century Chapter One 35-77 Decent Citizens and Useful Innocents? The National Council for Civil Liberties, the Left and Civil Liberties in the 1930s Chapter Two 78-111 From Civil Liberties to Human Rights? British Civil Liberties Activists and a New World Order Chapter Three 112-148 The Progressive Professionals: The National Council for Civil Liberties and the Politics of Activism in the 1960s. Chapter Four 149-197 ‘Fighters and Philosophers’? Freedom Groups and Civil Liberties Activism in Contemporary Britain. v Chapter Five 198-240 From Progressive to Radical? The Crisis of the 1970s and the National Council for Civil Liberties Conclusions 241-251 Bibliography 252-287 vi Tables, Images and Graphs Page Table 1.1 49 Members of For Intellectual Liberty and Association with the NCCL Graph 2.1 100 Party Affiliation of MPs associated with the NCCL in the 1930s Graph 2.1 100 Party Affiliation of MPs associated with the NCCL in the 1940s Table 4.1 166 The NAFF’s Charter of Rights and Liberties Table 5.1 205 Distribution of NCCL Membership and Affiliation, 1972 Table 5.2 210 Members of the NCCL Executive Committee, Known Professions and Associated Organizations, 1974-1981 216 Image 5.1 Cover of Civil Liberty displaying member following attack on Manchester Meeting on 30 November 1975 vii Abbreviations AAM: Anti-Apartheid Movement ACLU: American Civil Liberties Union AI: Amnesty International AGM: Annual General Meeting ALRA: Abortion Law Reform Association BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation BIHR: British Institute for Human Rights BUF: British Union of Fascists CAFD: Council for Academic Freedom and Democracy CARD: Campaign Against Racial Discrimination CCF: Congress for Cultural Freedom CCS: Centre for Cultural Studies CND: Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament CPAG: Child Poverty Action Group ECHR: European Convention on Human Rights GCL: Greater London Council GLF: Gay Liberation Front ILP: Independent Labour Party IRA: Irish Republican Army IWA: Indian Workers Association JCWI: Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants JUSTICE: Joint Union of Societies to Insure the Civil Liberties in England and Elsewhere LSE: London School of Economics LNU: League of Nations Union viii MI5: Ministry of Intelligence, Section 5 MP: Member of Parliament NA: The National Archives NAFF: National Association for Freedom/The Freedom Association NCCI: National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants NCCL: National Council for Civil Liberties NGO: Non-Governmental Organization NSM: New Social Movement NVLA: National Viewers and Listener’s Association OXFAM: Oxford Committee for Famine Relief PEP: Political and Economic Planning PEST: Pressure for Economic and Social Toryism SFIF: Society for Individual Freedom SMO: Social Movement Organization SPUC: Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child TUC: Trades Union Congress UDC: Union for Democratic Control UDHR: Universal Declaration of Human Rights UN: United Nations UNA: United Nations Association UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization WISC: West Indian Standing Committee ix Introduction Civil Liberties, Human Rights and Political Activism in the Twentieth Century The National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) formed in 1934. In 1989, it rebranded as Liberty, operating under the tag-line ‘Protecting Civil Liberties: Promoting Human Rights’. This discursive shift had been a long-time coming. In 1945, the NCCL held national and international conferences to discuss the creation of a transnational human rights network. From 1968, it described itself as belonging to a global human rights movement. In 1979, the NCCL’s newsletter changed its title from Civil Liberties to Rights!. Such alterations seemingly reflected the new found importance that the language of rights has had within the second half of the twentieth century. Since the Second World War, human rights have had great prominence in international politics. Rights were enshrined within the Charter of the United Nations in 1945 and given even greater articulation in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 (UDHR). The restructuring of European politics in the post-war era also featured rights within the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 (ECHR). Within Britain, human rights have become a crucial component of the legal system, they have provided a rationale for international development and foreign policy, as well as supplying an ethical framework in which a range of political organizations and movements in numerous fields have been able to situate their political activities. Understandably, this has drawn much attention. One work has suggested that ‘a new idea has trumped the global world stage: human rights. It unites left and right, the pulpit and the state, the minister and the rebel, the developing world and the liberals of Hampstead and 1 Manhattan’.1 In 2006,