Red Clydeside: A history of the labour movement in Glasgow 1910-1932

Events

ILP disaffiliation from the Labour Party 1932

On 30 July 1932 the Independent Labour Party (ILP) made its momentous decision to leave the Labour Party. The decision to disaffiliate was the end product of years of frustration within the strongly socialist ILP at the Labour Party's commitment to reformism rather than socialism.

The problems had first arisen in 1918, when the Labour Party became a socialist party. For a number of years the ILP debated whether or not it should continue. In the end it did, with a high level of enthusiasm for a commitment to it acting as the socialist conscience of the Labour Party. In the early 1920s it worked well with Labour, rising to 50,000 fee-paying members, increasing parliamentary representation and developing a growing reputation for ideas, with its summer schools spawning many innovative socialist ideas. But from the mid 1920s, when John Wheatley, James Maxton and the 'Clydesiders' gained the upper hand within the ILP, tensions and conflicts began to divide the party. Representing a more working-class tradition within the party, the Clydesiders were determined to mould the party into something akin to 'the socialist backbone' of the Labour Party.

Events came to a head during the Labour Party's second term in Government in 1929 when it seemed to Maxton and other leaders of the ILP that Ramsay MacDonald's government was more interested in maintaining the goodwill of middle-class voters than enacting strong socialist measures to assist the living and working conditions of the working classes. In protest at this non-commitment to the development of socialist principles, the parliamentary ILP began operating as a party within a party and refused to accept Labour Party standing orders in parliament.

These actions were tolerated by the Labour Party whilst it was in government but following the tumultuous events of 1931 and the collapse of MacDonald's Labour government, the patience of the Labour Party with the ILP was at an end. Thus, following Labour's disastrous electoral defeat in 1931 in which only 52 Labour MPs were returned to Parliament, the Parliamentary Labour Party demanded that all affiliated MPs pledge themselves to obey the standing orders of the party. This action was clearly an attempt to ensure party unity within parliament amongst the small group of Labour MPs, but it was interpreted by Maxton and the remaining four ILP MPs as an attack on their freedom of expression which they would not sacrifice at any cost, including ILP disaffiliation from the Labour Party.

There was substantial support for Maxton's viewpoint from the Scottish ILP branches which dominated the national movement. Consequently, Maxton and his Clydeside supporters were able to press for the amendment of Labour's standing orders and disaffiliation with some certainty that their views had wide approval and would be accepted.

The ILP disaffiliated from the Labour Party at its special conference held in Jowett Hall in Bradford on Saturday and Sunday 30-31 July 1932. The decision to disaffiliate was taken on the Saturday by 241 to 142 votes, and the Sunday meeting was held to reorganise the ILP constitution and to advise members and branches to resign from the Labour Party, and to get trade unionists to redirect their political levy from Labour to the ILP.

The ILP eventually ceased to exist as a political party in 1975 and rejoined the Labour Party as a rather small propaganda and discussion group in the same year.