The subdivision of larger territories into electoral districts is designed to enable representation for district populations in the national legislative body. This article establishes that spatial-type reforms such as the redrawing of electoral district boundaries can have profound and long-lasting, but often overlooked, organizational and ideational effects on local parties. The effects of constituency redrawing (the 1917–18 Boundary Commission and Review) are examined via a case study of the interwar Peterborough Divisional Labour Party in relation to three areas: (1) the structural organization of the local party, (2) the selection and retention of parliamentary candidates and party organizers, and (3) the local framing of national policy. The analysis argues that the boundary review and its creation of an enlarged parliamentary constituency consisting of Peterborough and the Soke of Peterborough produced political and organizational challenges that the party never fully resolved. Labour attempted but struggled to represent the interests of all the area’s constituents – even the electoral victory of 1929 demonstrates the effects of campaign dynamism rather than rural breakthrough. It is important that parties consider these potential impacts when deciding how to respond to spatial–institutional change.
{"title":"Boundary Review and the Organization and Identity of the Peterborough Divisional Labour Party","authors":"Scott Rawlinson","doi":"10.3828/lhr.2024.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2024.6","url":null,"abstract":"The subdivision of larger territories into electoral districts is designed to enable representation for district populations in the national legislative body. This article establishes that spatial-type reforms such as the redrawing of electoral district boundaries can have profound and long-lasting, but often overlooked, organizational and ideational effects on local parties. The effects of constituency redrawing (the 1917–18 Boundary Commission and Review) are examined via a case study of the interwar Peterborough Divisional Labour Party in relation to three areas: (1) the structural organization of the local party, (2) the selection and retention of parliamentary candidates and party organizers, and (3) the local framing of national policy. The analysis argues that the boundary review and its creation of an enlarged parliamentary constituency consisting of Peterborough and the Soke of Peterborough produced political and organizational challenges that the party never fully resolved. Labour attempted but struggled to represent the interests of all the area’s constituents – even the electoral victory of 1929 demonstrates the effects of campaign dynamism rather than rural breakthrough. It is important that parties consider these potential impacts when deciding how to respond to spatial–institutional change.","PeriodicalId":43028,"journal":{"name":"Labour History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141693212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines William Sharman Crawford’s participation in mid-nineteenth-century popular radicalism in England. Despite his unusual background as a wealthy Irish landlord and his limitations as a politician, Sharman Crawford emerged as an important figure in Chartism, especially during the early 1840s when he served as MP for Rochdale. His support from across Chartism resulted from his principled positions, particularly on suffrage, that demonstrated a commitment to democracy pursued through constitutional means. He emphasized the unjust nature of the exclusive legislation that resulted from an inadequate franchise and framed Chartist reforms as echoing past efforts in England and Ireland. Drawing on archival materials and the newspaper press, this article argues for Sharman Crawford’s significance in bridging the divides of radicalism in this era.
{"title":"‘The Most Consistent of Them All’: William Sharman Crawford and the Politics of Suffrage","authors":"Anthony Daly","doi":"10.3828/lhr.2024.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2024.5","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines William Sharman Crawford’s participation in mid-nineteenth-century popular radicalism in England. Despite his unusual background as a wealthy Irish landlord and his limitations as a politician, Sharman Crawford emerged as an important figure in Chartism, especially during the early 1840s when he served as MP for Rochdale. His support from across Chartism resulted from his principled positions, particularly on suffrage, that demonstrated a commitment to democracy pursued through constitutional means. He emphasized the unjust nature of the exclusive legislation that resulted from an inadequate franchise and framed Chartist reforms as echoing past efforts in England and Ireland. Drawing on archival materials and the newspaper press, this article argues for Sharman Crawford’s significance in bridging the divides of radicalism in this era.","PeriodicalId":43028,"journal":{"name":"Labour History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141700905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the British trade union movement’s relationship with Zionism in the period from the Arab Revolt to the Six Day War. It argues that despite an appearance of fraternalism between the British and Zionist labour movements, this relationship was, in fact, governed more by indifference and political expediency on behalf of British trade unions and unionists than by any genuine ideological solidarity or conviction. It shows the Trades Union Congress’s reluctance to give any tangible support to Zionist political aims, most clearly when such aims were in opposition to the Attlee government’s Palestine policy, but even at other points when the Zionist project faced existential threats to its continued existence.
{"title":"Not an Industrial Matter: The British Trade Union Movement and Zionism, 1936–1967","authors":"John Russell","doi":"10.3828/lhr.2024.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2024.7","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the British trade union movement’s relationship with Zionism in the period from the Arab Revolt to the Six Day War. It argues that despite an appearance of fraternalism between the British and Zionist labour movements, this relationship was, in fact, governed more by indifference and political expediency on behalf of British trade unions and unionists than by any genuine ideological solidarity or conviction. It shows the Trades Union Congress’s reluctance to give any tangible support to Zionist political aims, most clearly when such aims were in opposition to the Attlee government’s Palestine policy, but even at other points when the Zionist project faced existential threats to its continued existence.","PeriodicalId":43028,"journal":{"name":"Labour History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141697372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alfred Edwards, MP for Middlesbrough East from 1935 to 1950, has been subject to only cursory academic attention during the lifetime of the 1945–51 Labour governments. Consequently, this article provides the first detailed study of Edwards’s parliamentary career. It is argued that Edwards was a significant national figure due to both his expulsion from the Labour Party in 1948 and the campaign he subsequently waged against Labour’s policy of steel nationalization in 1949. This article further argues that steel nationalization was the most controversial measure enacted from Labour’s 1945 manifesto, as it was neither a failing industry nor a public utility. As such, steel nationalization sparked huge internal debates about Labour’s future direction and, in Parliament, provoked the largest anti-government vote of Clement Attlee’s 1945–50 administration. In these years, Edwards played a substantial role in harnessing forces against steel nationalization, culminating in his campaign of 1949. Through an investigation of Edwards’s parliamentary conduct, expulsion from the Labour Party, and Steel Defence Campaign, this article concludes that, even if speaking on only one issue and for a short period of time, Edwards was a headline-generating figure whose absence from the historiography of these years is worthy of reassessment.
{"title":"In Defence of Steel: The Expulsion of Alfred Edwards MP and His Campaign against Steel Nationalization, 1948–1951","authors":"Christopher Massey","doi":"10.3828/lhr.2024.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2024.2","url":null,"abstract":"Alfred Edwards, MP for Middlesbrough East from 1935 to 1950, has been subject to only cursory academic attention during the lifetime of the 1945–51 Labour governments. Consequently, this article provides the first detailed study of Edwards’s parliamentary career. It is argued that Edwards was a significant national figure due to both his expulsion from the Labour Party in 1948 and the campaign he subsequently waged against Labour’s policy of steel nationalization in 1949. This article further argues that steel nationalization was the most controversial measure enacted from Labour’s 1945 manifesto, as it was neither a failing industry nor a public utility. As such, steel nationalization sparked huge internal debates about Labour’s future direction and, in Parliament, provoked the largest anti-government vote of Clement Attlee’s 1945–50 administration. In these years, Edwards played a substantial role in harnessing forces against steel nationalization, culminating in his campaign of 1949. Through an investigation of Edwards’s parliamentary conduct, expulsion from the Labour Party, and Steel Defence Campaign, this article concludes that, even if speaking on only one issue and for a short period of time, Edwards was a headline-generating figure whose absence from the historiography of these years is worthy of reassessment.","PeriodicalId":43028,"journal":{"name":"Labour History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140353068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The relatively new bundle of scholarship gathered under the notion of a ‘global 1989’ has produced an innovative field of research that highlights the necessity of a global approach towards the implosion of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Yet this literature has neglected the broad range of international and transnational organizations which had an indispensable role during, but also after, the Cold War. Therefore this article attempts to approach the ‘global 1989’ from the vantage point of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). The analysis of this large trade union confederation sheds new light on post-Cold War labour internationalism, which has often been overshadowed by the developments leading up to the establishment of the ITUC in 2006. Furthermore, the article uncovers how the end of state socialism and its global reverberations engendered new fissures, debates, and tensions within the organization. While there might have been a ‘rush to the East’ during the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, globalization – which within the trade union landscape was accelerated by the global 1989 – became a far more pressing challenge during the 1990s.
{"title":"2023\u0000 Labour History Review\u0000 Essay Prize Winner","authors":"Manuel Herrera Crespo","doi":"10.3828/lhr.2024.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2024.3","url":null,"abstract":"The relatively new bundle of scholarship gathered under the notion of a ‘global 1989’ has produced an innovative field of research that highlights the necessity of a global approach towards the implosion of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe. Yet this literature has neglected the broad range of international and transnational organizations which had an indispensable role during, but also after, the Cold War. Therefore this article attempts to approach the ‘global 1989’ from the vantage point of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). The analysis of this large trade union confederation sheds new light on post-Cold War labour internationalism, which has often been overshadowed by the developments leading up to the establishment of the ITUC in 2006. Furthermore, the article uncovers how the end of state socialism and its global reverberations engendered new fissures, debates, and tensions within the organization. While there might have been a ‘rush to the East’ during the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, globalization – which within the trade union landscape was accelerated by the global 1989 – became a far more pressing challenge during the 1990s.","PeriodicalId":43028,"journal":{"name":"Labour History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140357360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As highlighted in the recent controversies over European immigrants and the refugee ‘crisis’ that culminated in Brexit, Labour’s struggle in balancing its internationalist principles with policy administration has been a constant theme in the party’s immigration and refugee policy. This article situates the Labour Party’s discussion on the 1919 Aliens Act in the context of post-war internationalism, and contends that the change in focus from pre-war advocacy of the British liberal tradition to internationalist concerns reflected both the socialist proclamation of the Labour Party and the liberal internationalism of the time. The 1919 Aliens Act was deemed an example of selfish nationalism likely to undermine international peace and workers’ solidarity. At the same time, however, Labour also sought to shake off the suspicion that advocacy of free immigration could pose – that the party prioritized foreigners over Britons – by reconciling internationalism with patriotism. Insisting that true internationalism be built upon love of one’s home country, Labour politicians did not give up their patriotic and national claims, and accepted that a state could restrict the inflow of foreigners in times of national difficulty.
{"title":"Patriotic Internationalists and Free Immigration: The British Labour Party’s Internationalism in Debates on Immigration Restriction, 1918–1931","authors":"Eunjae Park","doi":"10.3828/lhr.2024.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2024.1","url":null,"abstract":"As highlighted in the recent controversies over European immigrants and the refugee ‘crisis’ that culminated in Brexit, Labour’s struggle in balancing its internationalist principles with policy administration has been a constant theme in the party’s immigration and refugee policy. This article situates the Labour Party’s discussion on the 1919 Aliens Act in the context of post-war internationalism, and contends that the change in focus from pre-war advocacy of the British liberal tradition to internationalist concerns reflected both the socialist proclamation of the Labour Party and the liberal internationalism of the time. The 1919 Aliens Act was deemed an example of selfish nationalism likely to undermine international peace and workers’ solidarity. At the same time, however, Labour also sought to shake off the suspicion that advocacy of free immigration could pose – that the party prioritized foreigners over Britons – by reconciling internationalism with patriotism. Insisting that true internationalism be built upon love of one’s home country, Labour politicians did not give up their patriotic and national claims, and accepted that a state could restrict the inflow of foreigners in times of national difficulty.","PeriodicalId":43028,"journal":{"name":"Labour History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140356117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Labour History Review\u0000 Essay Prize","authors":"","doi":"10.3828/lhr.2023.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2023.14","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43028,"journal":{"name":"Labour History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138959302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Born in Liverpool in 1874, Big Jim Larkin always insisted that he was Irish. No historian has ever challenged him on the claim, or seen him as anything other than a uniquely Irish figure. And yet there was a British dimension to Larkin’s outlook. Liverpool gave him a love of soccer and travel, and shaped his interest in socialism and literature. He first went to Ireland in 1907 as an agent of a British trade union and remained keenly engaged with British Labour up to his departure for America in 1914. During the Dublin lockout in 1913, Larkin demanded aid from British workers with a sense of entitlement that no other Irish Labour leader would have entertained. His ‘Fiery Cross’ campaign made the lockout a part of British labour history. Larkinism too should be lifted out of a purely Irish context. It was not only a subset of the ‘Great Labour Unrest’ that shook British industrial relations between 1911 and 1914, but a reflex of international trends in industrial conflict and growing support for syndicalism between 1890 and 1914. Larkin was a changed man after the lockout and never again had the same level of engagement with British trade unionism.
{"title":"How British was Larkinism? Big Jim Larkin and the British Labour Movement, 1907–1914","authors":"Emmet O’Connor","doi":"10.3828/lhr.2023.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2023.9","url":null,"abstract":"Born in Liverpool in 1874, Big Jim Larkin always insisted that he was Irish. No historian has ever challenged him on the claim, or seen him as anything other than a uniquely Irish figure. And yet there was a British dimension to Larkin’s outlook. Liverpool gave him a love of soccer and travel, and shaped his interest in socialism and literature. He first went to Ireland in 1907 as an agent of a British trade union and remained keenly engaged with British Labour up to his departure for America in 1914. During the Dublin lockout in 1913, Larkin demanded aid from British workers with a sense of entitlement that no other Irish Labour leader would have entertained. His ‘Fiery Cross’ campaign made the lockout a part of British labour history. Larkinism too should be lifted out of a purely Irish context. It was not only a subset of the ‘Great Labour Unrest’ that shook British industrial relations between 1911 and 1914, but a reflex of international trends in industrial conflict and growing support for syndicalism between 1890 and 1914. Larkin was a changed man after the lockout and never again had the same level of engagement with British trade unionism.","PeriodicalId":43028,"journal":{"name":"Labour History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138959346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Welsh labour historiography has been dominated by the history of the south Wales miners, with the north Wales quarrymen occupying second place, and other groups of workers having received less attention. This is partly due to the dominant assumptions of labour historians which are tied up with ideas of modernization and universalism, and which have privileged anglophone accounts of the past. The Welsh radical tradition, although well explored and documented within Wales, has not been sufficiently recognized within narratives of British labour history. Rather, the emergence and subsequent dominance of the Labour Party has tended to occlude an earlier, vibrant, and diverse Welsh radical history. Now, half a century after the professional organization of Welsh labour historians, thoroughgoing deindustrialization and political devolution have created a new context for a new generation of labour historians who have no direct memory of a Wales dominated by heavy industry. This provides both challenges and opportunities. Welsh and British labour historians have much to gain by developing a closer relationship, and this will involve striking a careful balance between universalist and particularist interpretations of labour’s Welsh history.
{"title":"Of Red Flags and Red Dragons: Welsh Labour History in Retrospect and Prospect","authors":"Martin Wright","doi":"10.3828/lhr.2023.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/lhr.2023.11","url":null,"abstract":"Welsh labour historiography has been dominated by the history of the south Wales miners, with the north Wales quarrymen occupying second place, and other groups of workers having received less attention. This is partly due to the dominant assumptions of labour historians which are tied up with ideas of modernization and universalism, and which have privileged anglophone accounts of the past. The Welsh radical tradition, although well explored and documented within Wales, has not been sufficiently recognized within narratives of British labour history. Rather, the emergence and subsequent dominance of the Labour Party has tended to occlude an earlier, vibrant, and diverse Welsh radical history. Now, half a century after the professional organization of Welsh labour historians, thoroughgoing deindustrialization and political devolution have created a new context for a new generation of labour historians who have no direct memory of a Wales dominated by heavy industry. This provides both challenges and opportunities. Welsh and British labour historians have much to gain by developing a closer relationship, and this will involve striking a careful balance between universalist and particularist interpretations of labour’s Welsh history.","PeriodicalId":43028,"journal":{"name":"Labour History Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138961979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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