Labour Heritage AGM Saturday 12^th March 2005

The theme of the Labour Heritage AGM this year, held in the Fenner Brockway Room at Conway Hall, was the 60^th anniversary of the 1945 Labour election victory. It was attended by over 50 people. Stan Newens, Chair of Labour Heritage welcomed the audience and spoke of the excitement generated at Labour’s landslide in 1945. He personally was working in a pea-field in Epping when the local results came in and everyone had cheered when it was learned that Labour had won Epping. Even the church bells were rung.

Tony Benn remembers the 1945 Labour Government

The first speaker was Tony Benn, the longest ever serving Labour MP who stood down at the last general election. He gave his impressions of 1945. He came from a political background as his father had served in the Ramsay MacDonald Labour Government of 1929/31. As a ten year old he had distributed election leaflets in 1935. He recalled Oswald Moseley and the fight against fascism in the 1930s. This he said had been a separate fight from World War 2. The Tory Press did not see the War and the fight against fascism as the same thing – the Times obituary of Hitler in 1945 did not even mention his anti-semitism and persecution of the Jews!

Going on to the impact of the War on the election result he pointed out that there had been full employment in wartime. People remembering the 1930s were asking why this could not be achieved in peace time as well. Tony was in the armed forces where he said they had plenty of time to talk and think about politics. Away from the moments of danger being in the armed forces could be very boring. There was a lot of respect for Churchill as a war-leader and it was considered to be inconceivable that he could be defeated but it was the pre-war Tory Party that people were voting against. Churchill launched a dirty campaign against Labour  claiming that a Labour Government would introduce the Gestapo. This was remarkable when Clement Atlee had been his deputy wartime leader!

The 1945 election result showed that you could win even in the most unfavourable circumstances. The 1930s had been grim – but if the Party could survive Ramsay Macdonald then it could survive New Labour. The 1945 government inherited a country which was bankrupt but its first action was to treble widows’ pensions. The National Health Service was brought in – all completely free at first. However Michael Foot and Nye Bevan were to face expulsion from the Party by 1951 for their opposition to official party policy. This showed that Old Labour was not always tolerant. However Labour remained popular and gained more votes in 1951 than in 1945.

Norman Howard assesses 1945 and its significance

The other main speaker was Norman Howard who had joined the Labour League of Youth in 1945. Since then he was been a Labour election agent, councillor and assistant trades union secretary and is now doing research into the 1945 Labour Government.

It was the age of public meetings – he recalled 5,000 turning out to hear Stafford Cripps. There was no TV in those days. Labour candidates were still in the forces and addressed several meetings a day in their army uniforms-often the only clothes they had. He recalled one candidate with his leg in plaster. But people could listen to the arguments and make up their own minds. Constituency parties were not prepared at all for a campaign. Jim Callaghan recalled being elected in Cardiff with a 10,000 majority. But he had only just arrived back from the Far East and in those days it had taken him 2 weeks to get back. He said that there was one car and one bicycle for the whole constituency.

There were no opinion polls but a Labour victory was not expected. Ernest Bevin was even preparing for a post-election holiday-when the results came in he had to abandon the idea and get to Potsdam as Foreign Secretary

After the 1935 election defeat Labour had started making gains at every bye-election between 1936-1938. It was often debated that had there been a general election  scheduled in 1939, Labour would have quite likely won. However the War cut across this and Labour joined a wartime coalition government, contributing 18 ministers. The Party withered during the War as  people under 30s were conscripted. And there was a bye-election truce. Seats were not contested. But by 1942 this had started to change with independents challenging the Coalition Government in Wallasey, Grantham and Maldon where Tom Driberg was first elected. In 1943 the Commonwealth Party began to win seats.

The majority of the Tory Press predicted a Tory majority, only the News Chronicle predicted a Labour win. Labour had considered asking for the general election to be delayed until November 1945 but that was rejected. However there were problems in drawing up an election register for July. It was reported that Churchill had been left off the electoral roll. Discussions took place on how ballot papers could be distributed to the forces, even to prisoners of war abroad.

Much of Labour’s programme was formulated by wartime experience – the Beveridge Report was adopted by the Party although Beveridge never joined the Labour Party. Nationalisation became acceptable even to the Tories. The government had requisitioned trains for instance for moving troops. In wartime troops had received health care free of charge. But full employment was a major concern. Norman believes that the forces’ vote though important was overestimated in determining the election result as the forces only turned out by 50%, compared to an overall turnout of 72%.

20,000 people would go to a meeting to hear Churchill but they did not vote for him. When Winchester and Stroud went to Labour there was no turning back.

Norman related how even after the Labour election majority there were still unsuccessful moves to get Clement Attlee replaced with Herbert Morrison. He also recalled how the Red Flag was sung in Parliament when Labour MPs took up their seats. It was an exciting moment.

Members of the audience contributed their own reminiscences of 1945. Len Snow was in the Army Bureau of Current Affairs and distributed leaftlets. Irene  Wagner worked in war time intelligence. She joined the Common Wealth Party. Betty Snow recalls her school activities in the League of Nations Union when she had to ask politicians from all parties including the fascists to speak at her school. Anne Lubin recalls the Blackshirts still being active in the East End of London even after films about the concentration camps had been shown.

There was discussion on whether Labour could have won in 1939, what would have happened if the election had been postponed in 1945 and what if the Tories had won in 1945. Would the Tories have nationalized? If so then they would have been to the left of New Labour.

The role of the trades unions in the 1945 election campaign was discussed. Members of the railway workers’ union put up posters in favour of nationalization on wagons of coal.  There was an election levy on trades union members.

The impact of the election result on the colonies was also discussed and the subsequent Labour policy towards them.

Labour’s manifesto in 1945 had proclaimed that “we are a socialist party and proud of it”. “our aim is a socialist commonwealth”.