Labourism and the Labour Government

Abstract

The argument that all political parties in Britain, who style themselves reforming and progressive, behave like conservatives when in office and have done so for the past hundred years, has received increasing support from the evidence of the last few decades. In general terms. the behaviour of Liberal Governments before 1914 and of Labour Governments after do show remarkable similarities. Their administrations can usually be relied upon to lose their political nerve some time before they have to face the electorate once again: serious factional quarrels commonly develop between various ministerial groups and there are often resignations: the legislative programme of social reform is normally well below the expectations of their followers in the country; and above all, the foreign policy of their Conservative predecessors is never deviated from. These are not, in general, propositions to which members of the present Labour Party in Britain are likely to agree, whichever political wing of the Party they belong to. The Labour Party adopted a socialist constitution in 1918 and its members genuinely believe that Labour politics are concerned with some degree or other of radical change. It is a matter of sober fact that the left wing of the Labour Party have always assumed that the achievement of socialism will be possible through the Labour Party, as the only mass political organization of the British workers, and that the assumption of office by Labour will be the starting point for the advance to socialism. Here, for instance, is the editorial in Tribune -the leading journal of the Labour left-written immediately after the General Election of Spring 1966 which returned Labour to power with an unassailable majority.