Cyprus and Party Discipline
By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS
FOR myself I have from the first taken the view that there could be no value in bases for us in Cyprus in the midst of a hostile population. In Cyprus, as elsewhere, I detest barbarous and Unnecessary murder, but I have never been able to see why, when self-determination is the gener- ally proclaimed principle of politics, it should be in Cyprus alone that its application should be refused. The only at all respectable reason for delaying the grant of Cypriot self-government has been the plea that, were the British to withdraw, there would be bloody civil war between Greeks and Turks—a civil war which might well de- generate into an international war. There have been times when it looked probable that that would happen. But now that there is Greco- Turkish agreement, I should certainly not have the smallest hesitation, were I a Member of Par- liament, in giving that agreement the support of my vote.
This I say for the record. For it is not the inten- tion of this article to discuss the merits of the Cyprus question, but merely to discuss the appli- cation to it of party discipline at Westminster. We are told that party discipline is necessary be- cause, once a party has accepted a policy, then its leaders must be able to rely on support in carrying through the details of that policy. For the sake of the larger loyalty the individual back- bencher must be prepared to refrain from pressing his detailed dissident criticism. If he can- not rely on support, the leader cannot carry through a coherent and consistent policy.
Now I have no quarrel at all with these general maxims, but I cannot see what bearing they have on things as they are. When we abandoned the Suez base,. back-bench Members were told that it was right to abandon that base because we had a more suitable base in Cyprus. Mr. Hopkinson said that Cyprus was one of those territories that could 'never' hope for independence. Cyprus, we were told, was a British colony, and foreign Powers such as Greece and Turkey had not even a right to express an opinion about its future fate. Then, by later plans, though it was indeed by then conceded that Greeks and Turks should be consulted, nevertheless it would be irrespon- sible for the British to abdicate their essential role of keeping the Greeks and the Turks from cutting one another's throats. Now it seems to have turned out that, as long as the British insisted on playing third party in the negotiations, it was impossible to get the Greeks and the Turks to agree, but, that, When the British keep out of it, then Greeks and Turks can agree with one another.
Now I do not complain that things have turned out like this. I am very glad. It was the only Way in which the problem could have been solved, and the only , surprise is the happy surprise that it should have been solved in this way as soon as it has, and 1 have little doubt that Mr. Mac- millan, being a very intelligent man, Saw this as clearly as any of the rest of us all along. I understand also very well that the great mass of his vocal supporters in this country—the great Mass of back-bench MPs and of members of con- stituency executives—did not see it at all. In this, as in other problems, one of his most difficult tasks has been to play along his supporters, to give them the impression that something quite different and, to them, more palatable was going to happen until the moment wheri he was able to throw the fait accompli at their heads, bidding them take it or leave it and rightly calculating that it would then be too late for them to do other than take it. And granted that a political party is what a political party has today become —that strange amalgam of elaborate organisation with total lack of principle—it may well be that there was nothing else that he could have done. The critic might say that the leaders of the Con- servative Party, as indeed the leaders of the Socialist Party, should have spent more time in trying to educate their followers in reality. That in place of rhetoric about 'Great Britain being great again' we should have had realistic analyses of the limits of British power in the modern world and of the policies which must necessarily result from such limits. I think that we should. But in fairness we should admit that such criticisms are much more easily made from out- side than from inside a party machine. People —particularly people who take an active part in party-politics—like hearing what they are accus- tomed to hear. Any novel gospel or doctrine bothers them. Therefore it is always a temptation to the political leader, to say the familiar, which will get the easy understanding and the easy applause. It follows that the inconvenient novelty is only proclaimed at the last moment and when it is no longer possible to conceal it—that the public is unprepared for it, and that therefore it comes as an unnecessary shock.
Party discipline is used today not to sustain a policy but to conceal a policy, and the con- , sequences of these volte-face, in so far as one is merely concerned with comedy, are of course frequently extremely comic. For instance, In this story of Cyprus, it is not many weeks since poor Mr. Fenner Brockway was being told that he bore a large share of the responsibility for the blood- shed in Cyprus because he had spread abroad the impression among the Cypriots that, should a Socialist Government come to power in this country, it 'would grant Cyprus immediate in- dependence. No government, Socialist or Con- servative, Mr. Brockway was told, could possibly make such a concession. It was wicked and irre- sponsible of him to suggest it, and indeed the Socialist front bench itself did not much demur from the criticism of Mr. Brockway. Now it appears that Mr. Brockway's only error was in suggesting that independence would be granted by the Socialists after the election, whereas it is being granted by the Conservatives before the election.
Now, as I say, I happen to be of the school of thought which believes that for better or worse this is the era of self-determination. I am not at the moment concerned to argue here why I believe this or whether I am right or wrong. But such a man as Lord Hinchingbrooke does not believe that. Perfectly honourably and courage- ously he argues in season and out of season that we ought, in face of whatever obstacles, to main- tain our various imperial commitments, and, that being his honourable point of view, it is difficult to deny that he has a very valid grievance. 'If you never had any intention of holding anything,' he dan say, 'then you should have said so from the first, and we should all have known where we were. But it is not fair to us that you should again and again use language about holding fast until the very moment of surrender and thus again and again leave us, who have tried to support you, looking foolish.' He is right to complain that the one policy of today is the opposite of the policy of last June. And I do not find in the leaders of either of the political parties any deep sense of the harm that they have done to the moral life of this country by their continual habit of tricking their supporters. 'Ydur God is an old man whom you cheat,' said Ibsen to the Norwegians of his day. Much the same is the attitude of English politicians to their electorate. Even a party leader cannot fool all of his party all of the time, and the currency'of the party system is debased if he insists on trying.
'Beaver/'
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