ays waving the bosses' flag
The jingoistic support of the Labour Party (and TUC) for the imperialist war in the Gulf should come as no surprise. Since its formation in 1900, the Party has been almost unswerving in the backing it has given to British imperialism's foreign interests in general, and it's wars in particular, reports PETE FIRMIN. In the run up to the First World War Labour, like all the European parties of the Socialist International, was opposed to war. At the Socialist International conference in 1910 it was the British delegates who proposed a cross-Europe simultaneous general strike in the event of war (though this policy was defeated).
On July 30 1914 the Parliamentary Labour Party unanimously passed a resolution expressing the hope that on no account will this country be dragged into the European conflict in which, as the Prime Minister has stated, we have no direct or indirect interest'. It also called upon all labour organisations in the country to watch events vigilantly so as to oppose, if need be, in the most effective way any action which may involve us in war".
As war threatened, huge demonstrations backed the Labour leaders" calls for peace. On August 2, Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson (the Party secretary) spoke at a mass demonstration in Trafalgar Square urging the government to keep out after Germany had declared war on France.
However, as soon as Britain did enter the war, Labour swung over to support. Ramsey MacDonald (later the Labour Party's archtraitor for forming a National Govemment with the Tories in 1931) opposed the war and resigned as leader. Henderson took his place and the great majority of the Labour Party supported the government, took part in the recruiting campaign and accepted an electoral truce. Labour got its first taste of government when Henderson was rewarded with a cabinet post in Asquith's coalition and two SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30, February 1991
GUL F SPECIAL Labour other Labour MPs took junior office.
Keir Hardie and MacDonald didn't like the war but opposed any agitation aimed at ending it. In September 1914, Macdonald joined with four anti-war Liberals to form the •Union of Democratic Control', which demanded democratic control of foreign policy, no annexations, an international organisation to maintain peace, and disarmament.
In 1916 Party conference opposed the conscription bill on principle, though saying the party would cease agitation on the question if it was passed.
When Lloyd George formed a new coalition goverment in December 1916, Labourrepresentation increased.
The Party's "Memorandum on War Aims" drawn up towards end of 1917 demanded the establishment of a League of Nations and machinery to deal with interational disputes.
One of the few honourable attitudes taken by the Labour Party in foreign policy came in 1920 over the issue of imperialist intervention against the Soviet Union. At the end of April 1920 London dockers had refused to load the Jolly George' with ammunition and other supplies for Poland in it's offensive against the Soviet Union.
By July 1920, the Polish army was in retreat with the Red Army in pursuit. Talks over a peace settlement broke down, and on 3rd August the British government warned the Russians that they would come to the aid of Poland if the Russian advance continued. On August 4, Henderson as Party secretary sent out telegrams(!) to all affiliated Labour Parties and Trades Councils warning of 'the extremely menacing possibility of an extension of the Polish-Russian war and strongly urging local parties to organize "citizens demonstrations" for the following Sunday to protest against intervention and the supply of men and ammunition to Poland.
Party leaders signed a manifesto exonerat-
John Harris/FL ing the Russians from responsibility in the crisis and waming that 'Labour will not cooperate in a war as allies of Poland'. The goverment proceeded to back off from giving armed support.
However, when the first Labour govemment was formed in December 1923 it had no no qualms at continuing imperial rule over the colonies as before, including the aerial bombing of Iraqi villages in 1924. The National government of the 'pacifist Macdonald attempted to crush the Indian revolution in 1930 with the jailing of Gandhi and the shooting down of workers and peasants.
In late 1935 Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia). In the run up to this both the TUC and LP conference overwhelmingly passed resolutions pledging 'firm support for any action consistent with the principles and statutes of the League [of Nations] to restrain the Italian govemment and to uphold the authority of the League in enforcing peace. Neither sanctions nor military action were supposed to be excluded by this, but nothing was done to check Italian aggression: on May 9 1936 Mussolini proclaimed Italy's annexation of Abyssinia - and Labour did nothing.
When the Spanish civil war started in July 1936 the international labour movement had a policy that 'in accordance with the existing rules of intermational law, the legal government of Spain should be permitted to obtain the necessary means for it's own defence". But by September the Labour Party was supporting the non-intervention agreement signed by Britain, Russia, Germany, Italy and other powers.
It argued that the non-intervention agreement might lessen international tension, provided it was scrupulously observed on all sides - a pious hope which no-one could seriously expect to see fulfilled.
As breaches of the agreement by Italy and Germany became clearer pressure on the Party increased, and eventually it adopted the
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slogan "Arms for Spain': but was not prepared to initiate the kind of campaign which was necessary if Republican Spain was to survive, instead restricting itself to relief work.
The Second World War saw a re-run of Labour's policy in the first. In 1940 Labour joined Churchill's coalition govemment. Two of the five War Cabinet ministers were Labour. Most major figures of the post-war (1945-51) Labour government held high office during the war.
One of Ernest Bevin's first acts as Minister of Labour was the passing of the Emergency Powers Act of May 1940 endowing his office with virtual dictatorial powers to conscript labour. These powers were used extensively against strikes.
In March 1942 Sir Stafford Cripps, a Labour member of the goverment, was sent to India to pacify the Indian Congress Party leaders who refused to support the war effort unless India was granted independence. He offered India full independence 'after the war'. Gandhi refused this "post-dated cheque and in August 1942 Congress began a campaign of civil disobedience to force Britain to quit India.
With Cripps' approval Gandhi, Nehru and other Indian leaders were arrested. Atlee chaired the cabinet meeting which approved the detentions and British repression led to nearly 1000 being killed by November 1942.
Labour's support for the U.S. in the Vietnam war is fairly well known. In government Labour backed every horror the US unleashed on Vietnam. As Prime Minister, Harold Wilson pledged unconditional support for the US bombing of North Vietnam and for their entire Vietnam policy in February 1965.
What is less well-known is the direct involvement of British forces in Vietnam at the end of the Second World War. A British expeditionary force intervened to bring to an end the first taste of independence that the people of Vietnam had known for 100 years. After the collapse of the Japanese, the Vietminh, under Ho Chi Minh, had taken power in Hanoi and Saigon. The British force was technically neutral, but refused to recognise the Vietminh government: its task was to hand Vietnam back to France which had controlled it before the war.
During this British occupation from September 1945 to March 1946 the nationalists were quashed at the cost of thousands of Vietnamese lives. At the end of October 1945, 60 Labour MPs issued a statement opposing the use of British troops to restore French imperialism in the far East".
In March 1946 Atlee became the first peacetime Prime Minister to implement military conscription - National Service of 18 months. When the Korean war broke out this Page 14
GULF SPECIAL was extended to 2 years. War between North and South Korea began on 25th June 1950 and two days later the cabinet unanimously endorsed US intervention in support of the South.
British troops were immediately sent to "assist". When the issue reached the House of Commons on July 5, only three Labour MPs voted against the goverment action. This same Labour goverment also helped to crush risings in Greece and Malaya.
Independence was granted to India, but what was depicted as a magnanimous gesture was brought about by the revolt of the Indian Indian leaders refused Labour's con navy and massive civil disturbances where it was admitted that to stay in India would have needed an occupation force of 500,000 men.
In 1948 the Nationalist Party in South Africa won an election and established apartheid. Labour's reaction was that Nationalists in South africa could be useful allies, being "terrified of communism' and in "complete sympathy" with the aims of British foreign policy. A cabinet paper of September 1950 wished to cultivate South Africa's goodwill from the general strategic and defence points of view.
Labour's backing for NATO throughout the post-war period is hardly surprising, since it was Bevin who established it in 1949. Atlee also introduced the nuclear arms programme, keeping it secret from everyone, including most of the Cabinet.
Out of govemment, Labour had one of its few serious disagreements with the Tories over foreign policy in 1956, over Egypt's nationalisation of the Suez canal. On November 1 1956 Labour declared itself profoundly shocked by the British govemment's attack on Egypt and called on it forthwith to cease all military measures against that country.
The Labour Party organised public meetings on the theme 'Law - Not War" but the limitations of this are seen in its call on people to 'use normal constitutional parliamentary methods to to bring pressure to bear on the government and to refrain from industrial action as a means of influencing national
policy*. British military actions came to an end within days and Labour let the matter rest.
As well as his support for the U.S. in Vietnam, the other major foreign policy issue faced by Wilson was the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by the white majority in Southem Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in November 1965. This was met by Wilson with a declaration that it was illegal and mild economic sanctions.
In 1964 Wilson had called for more helicopters to assist British troops fighting Adeni and Yemeni nationalists; had argued in the same year that it was time for Britain to
'get tough" in Cyprus and send in tanks; but in Rhodesia the use of force was ruled out. Labour's bipartisanship Tories over Ireland over the last twenty odd years is sordid, including as it does a Labour Home Secretary sending in the British troops in 1969 and Labour introducing the Prevention of Terrorism. Other than for a short period in the early 1920s, when discontent was at its height in Ireland and Labour moved close to a position of support for self-determination, this repressive approach has been consistent throughout. The support of Michael Foot for Thatcher's war OVCT the Falklands/Malvinas in 1982 is again well-known, his previous record as a pacifist not preventing him waving the flag.
With rare exceptions we can see that Labour's record is no different to the Tories on foreign policy. Indeed various Labour foreign secretaries have expressed their pride that this is the case. This bipartisanship has made Labour willing to be used in both world wars by the Tories to discipline the workforce "for the war effort" in a way which the Tories themselves might not have succeeded in doing.
Often the opposition within the party to the leadership's line has called vainly for "negotiations", in the hope that they will bring a peaceful resolution to the crisis, or that the use of force must be under the authority of some international body like the UN. Rarely have the "Left' taken a principled line of opposing imperialism's wars and building the opposition to them.
Labour is tied hand and foot to imperialism. Just as it accepts the concept of the "national interest" on the economy, so it extends this to 'foreign policy", often more so, wanting to prove its respectability.
There is another tradition, of socialist interationalism in the history of the British working class, one which the Labour and Trade Union leaders would like to keep buried. Our task is to take this up, and for as long as these leaders can claim to speak in our name take up the fig