30 APRIL 1948, Page 3

Party Discipline

Mr. Herbert Morrison's assurance that the Labour Party would take effective steps against those of its members who habitually took a line hostile to Government policy, particularly in communications addressed abroad, has found its first instalment of fulfilment in the expulsion from the party of Mr. J. Platts-Mills, M.P. for Finsbury. Mr. Platts-Mills' offence was the prominent part he took in organising a telegram, bearing the signatures of several M.P.s who apparently never authorised the use of their names, to Signor Nenni, the leader of that section of the Italian Socialists which made common cause with the Communists in the recent elections. That, by displaying to a foreign country, and indeed to the world, the Left-wing revolt in the British Labour Party, was an action of which the patty was compelled to take cognisance. Reasonable personal independence cannot be carried, as Mr. Platts-Mills has carried it, to the point of open and consistent antagonism to the whole of the party's foreign policy; and he can expect little sympathy in the fate that has befallen him. He may soon find some companionship, for 21 other M.P.s who signed the Nenni telegram are to be excluded from the party unless they give binding assurances by May 6th that they will desist from "activities which are to be considered subversive of party policy." Most of the 21 will no doubt give the undertaking, but there is a minority who, in the light of their past conduct, cannot well do that without a change of front which can hardly be expected of them. While dealing thus decisively with one rebel section the Executive has also, very much less reasonably, reaffirmed its view that it is undesirable for any member of the party to attend the United Europe Conference at The Hague next week, and less reason- ably still has invited Mr. Alfred Edwards, M.P. for Middlesbrough, to give account of his opposition to the Government's proposals for the nationalisation of the iron and steel industry. The attempt to direct impartial reprimand at Right and Left alike is not completely impressive.