Crines / Hickson Harold Wilson

The Unprincipled Prime Minister?: A Reappraisal of Harold Wilson
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-78590-058-7
Verlag: Biteback Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten

This year marks the centenary of Harold Wilson's birth, the fiftieth anniversary of his most impressive general election victory and forty years since his dramatic resignation as Prime Minister. He was one of the longest-serving premiers of the twentieth century, having won a staggering four general elections, yet, despite this monumental record, his place in Labour's history remains somewhat ambiguous. By the end of his two periods in power, both the left and right of the party were highly critical of Wilson - the former regarding him as a traitor to socialism, the latter as contributing directly to British decline. With contributions from leading experts in the fields of political study, and from Wilson's own contemporaries, this remarkable new study offers a timely and wide-ranging reappraisal of one of the giants of twentieth-century politics, examining the context within which he operated, his approach to leadership and responses to changing social and economic norms, the successes and failure of his policies, and how he was viewed by peers from across the political spectrum. Finally, it examines the overall impact of Harold Wilson on the development of British politics.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Crines, Andrew S.

Hickson, Kevin

Leseproben

1

WILSON AND
BRITISH SOCIALISM

Kevin Hickson

‘Socialism, as I understand it, means applying a sense of purpose to our national life.’ 1

THIS CHAPTER SEEKS to outline the ideology of Harold Wilson: his position within the ideological spectrum of the Labour Party, his understanding of socialism and criticisms made of it. The task is made difficult by the fact that, unlike a number of his contemporaries, he was not an intellectual, in the sense that he did not theorise about politics, although he was undoubtedly a highly intelligent person.

Above all Wilson was concerned with party management, which, according to his critics, made him appear duplicitous and inconsistent as he frequently positioned with different sides in different policy debates.2 He feared ministerial plots and frequently sought to reshuffle his ministerial team, either to promote backbench critics (thus ensuring their silence as ministers bound by collective responsibility), or to weaken those in office whom he regarded as a threat. His second term as Prime Minister was more tranquil, but by this time he was already considering retirement and so once again ‘ideology’ was not deemed a particularly noticeable feature of his latter period as Prime Minister.

Although it can be reasonably argued that his personal beliefs were therefore somewhat masked, this does not mean that ideology was somehow absent. Ideology is taken to mean a set of interconnected beliefs that condition political action and policy formulation.3 It is argued here that all politicians operate within certain ideological environments, overtly or not. Some political leaders are explicit in their ideology. In Britain since 1945 this was most notably the case with Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher. Others operate within certain ideological paradigms – the climate of opinion that conditions political action. Whether through personal choice or structural constraints they are not able to recast that climate of opinion. Ideologies, in this sense, are always present. A non-ideological form of politics is an impossibility, yet ideology is only one factor present in any given political situation. Other factors include the economy, the nature of the parliamentary party, electoral constraints, social change and the media. This chapter is therefore concerned with unravelling Wilson’s ideology from these other factors in his politics.

Ideologies, understood as interconnected beliefs, operate as established yet constantly evolving political traditions. There is a recognisable tradition of British socialism. It is also argued that Wilson had a distinctive understanding of British socialism. However, by the end of his two periods in power both left and right of the Labour Party were highly critical of Wilson.

This chapter will, firstly, set out the nature of British socialism. It will then go on to outline Wilson’s own personal understanding of socialism. Finally, the chapter will examine the critiques made of Wilson and his governments and evaluate how justified those critiques are.

THE NATURE OF BRITISH SOCIALISM

British socialism is, in essence, an ethical creed based not on Marxian ‘scientific’ laws of history but on abstract values such as social justice, equality, liberty and democracy. The precise meaning of these values and the priority attached to them often varies but they are at the core of British socialism.4

From the outset, the Labour Party – established as the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in 1900 – rejected the revolutionary route to socialism. Of the constituent parts of the LRC only the Social Democratic Federation was Marxist in its orientation and this was quickly marginalised in favour of the Fabian Society’s emphasis on gradualism, based on the ideas of the first significant revisionist critic of Marxism, Eduard Bernstein. The aim of the Labour Party was to persuade people to vote for it in order to gain a parliamentary majority, at which point the state could be ‘captured’ for the implementation of socialism. Marxism continued to have periodic influence on the Labour Party, such as in response to the two governments of Ramsay MacDonald and the Great Depression of the 1930s, but by 1945 the Fabian ideas had again won through largely owing to the incorporation of ‘Keynesian’ ideas into the party in the late 1930s. From the mid-twentieth-century perspective this view appeared justified.5

The electoral defeat of Attlee’s government in 1951 reopened these ideological disputes. For some, notably Hugh Gaitskell and Anthony Crosland, the party needed to undergo a second wave of revisionism taking into account the changes to British society and the economy since 1945.6 In Crosland’s major work, The Future of Socialism, post-war revisionism found its fullest expression.7 According to Crosland the power of the capitalist class had been fundamentally and irreversibly broken as organised labour, the state and a new managerial class now had power. The capacity of democracy to introduce social reform had been demonstrated by the Liberal governments of 1906–14 and the Labour governments of 1945–51. Capitalism had ceased to exist in Britain, at least as understood in Marxist theory. However, Britain was still not a socialist country as there remained too much inequality in income, wealth and social status. The policy of public ownership was relegated in importance to redistribution of wealth and income and comprehensive schooling.

For the left this was insufficient as a form of socialism. The Attlee governments had only nationalised one-fifth of industry and there remained too much power in the hands of corporate managers and shareholders. A future Labour government should therefore seek to extend public ownership, especially into the profit-making sector of the economy so that dividends could be used to fund social improvements. The price mechanism would be further eroded meaning that social need could be prioritised over wealth creation and industrial democracy should be introduced into both the private and public sectors. In addition, the Labour left criticised the foreign policy of Attlee and Ernest Bevin for being Atlanticist, including membership of NATO and support for the Korean War, and the pro-nuclear defence policy. Although the left initially advocated a ‘neutral zone’ between the Soviet Union and the United States, involving closer European cooperation, they largely opposed the emergence of the European Economic Community (EEC). Although the left had been present during the Attlee governments they were boosted considerably by the resignation of ‘Nye’ Bevan over rearmament and the Korean War.

WILSON’S SOCIALISM

It was these ideological disputes, as well as the personal rivalry of Bevan and Gaitskell, that split the party after election defeat in 1951. Wilson at first appeared to be on the side of the left by resigning with Bevan and later challenging Gaitskell for the leadership and George Brown for the deputy leadership. However, he also distanced himself from Bevan in the mid-1950s, replacing his mentor in the shadow Cabinet after Bevan’s resignation. By the time he became leader he had adopted many of the right’s policy positions. Meanwhile, the right continued to distrust Wilson because he had beaten their preferred candidate George Brown in the 1963 leadership contest, although the latter’s personal weaknesses were also a factor, along with the right’s vote being split between Brown and James Callaghan. On winning the 1964 general election, Wilson mostly appointed figures from the right of the party to the top Cabinet posts. However, he also maintained close links with those who were associated with the left, notably Barbara Castle and Richard Crossman, who had been allies of Bevan in the 1950s.

Wilson, then, was hard to place as a figure of either the left or the right. It would be better to see him as a centrist. Unlike the left and the right, those in the centre tend to be neglected. One attempt to reconcile this issue was in the book, The Struggle for Labour’s Soul, in which five ideological positions are identified in the Labour Party since 1945: the old left (Bevanites) and the new left (Bennite), the old right (Gaitskellites) and the new, or ‘modernised’ right (New Labour), and the centre.8 The centre consists of those who seek to maintain party unity, balancing the left and right tendencies. This is important in this context since Wilson represents perhaps the paradigmatic centrist in Labour Party terms since 1945.

His primary concern was with party unity. He recognised the damage that was being done to the Labour Party in the 1950s with the left–right splits, as ultimately did Bevan. But he also opposed Gaitskell’s attempts to revise Clause 4 of the party constitution, which he regarded – along with others such as Crossman – as creating an unnecessarily divisive split in the party. Gaitskell’s style of leadership was too divisive for Wilson. Gaitskell, in contrast, believed that it was necessary, in the more affluent Britain of the 1950s, to show that the Labour Party was not an ‘old fashioned’ socialist party. In this he was encouraged by Douglas Jay, but not necessarily by the likes of Crosland on the Clause 4 issue. Equally, Wilson’s attempts to balance left and right during his two periods as Prime Minister could be seen as an example of his centrism. His decision to suspend collective responsibility and...