Labour Party Anatomy
By J. R. L ANDERSON THE study of political anatomy is neglected. The various parties parade as entities ; their names are household words ; and people have become so accustomed to thinking of them under these long-familiar names that few give much detailed thought to what they are. But political behaviour, like all human behaviour, is conditioned by bodily states, and the corp prate structure of a political party may often have a vital influence on the policy it decides to follow—and perhaps an even more decisive influence in bringing about such differences as there may be between policies as announced in party-programmes and policies as they are actually carried out.
The Labour Party is a peculiarly interesting subject for the political dissecting-table, since, although it is very broadly based, much of its membership is indirect. It is a political confederation rather than a single party, formed by an alliance—sometimes a rather loose alliance—between a relatively small body called the "Labour Party," which gives its name to the whole, a section of the Co-operative movement, about eighty trade unions and four affiliated "Socialist societies." The total membership of the whole group is not far short of 6,000,000, but there is some duplication of membership, because members of affiliated bodies may also be individual members of constituency parties. The Labour Party proper, that is, the aggregate of all the constituency parties, provides only about one-sixth of the total membership. On the voting- strengths recorded at last year's party conference the affiliated trade unions mustered 4,782,000 members and the constituency parties 851,000. Both sections have somewhat increased their membership since last year.
The relations between the Labour Party and the Co-operative movement are complex. The Co-operative vote is negligible at Labour Party conferences, for only one Co-operative Society—the Royal Arsenal—is directly affiliated to the party nationally, and its card-vote last year was 34,000. There is a Co-operative party, which, outside Parliament, has a separate political existence, but which has an electoral agreement with the Labour Party by which it undertakes that its candidates, if elected, will join the Parlia- mentary Labour Party and "act in harmony" with Labour in the House of Commons. Inside Parliament the two parties are virtually indistinguishable. They are a kind of metaphysical unity rather than a coalition ; Mr. (now Lord) Alexander, the Minister of Defence, and Mr. Barnes, the Minister of Transport, are both members of the Labour Government although they belong to the Co-operative party.
Metaphysical unity, however, can be strained on the material plane by such things as Labour's original proposal to nationalise the Co-operative Insurance Society. The Co-operatives have also made it clear that they do not intend to allow Labour to encroach politically on their independence as trading organisations, and there have been some pointed references to " Co-operation " as an " alternative " to nationalisation. In obtaining " mutualisation " as a substitute for the proposed nationalisation of industrial life assurance the Co-operatives have won a marked political victory— at any rate, for themselves—and they are also said to have staved- off the nationalisation of flour-milling. But there are limits to this kind of compromise,. and the future of the Labour-Co-operative alliance is obscure.
The "Socialist societies" in the corporate organisation of the Labour Party are nowadays less important than they used to be. They are the Fabian Society, with a membership (on last year's figures) of 3,782, the Jewish Socialist Party (Paole Zion), with 2,200 members, the Socialist Medical Association (2,000) and the National Association of Labour Teachers (300). The Haldane Society used to be the recognised association of Labour lawyers, but the expul- sion from the Labour Party of Mr Platts-Mills brought internal political differences to a head, Sir Stafford Cripps and others left the Society, and last year it ceased to be affiliated.
The Fabian Society is world-famous, but its fame is not of this generation. It was of great importance to the Labour Party in its early days, and did much of its political and social thinking. Through the great Fabians, the Webbs and Mr. Bernard Shaw, Socialism made tens of thousands of converts, and much of its intellectual capital is still their legacy. It is a curious reflection that the modern Labour Party suffers intellectually from much the same defects of character as are traditionally to be looked for in a man who has inherited too much wealth from his forbears. It has spent, but has scarcely added to, its intellectual inheritance. The great Fabian thinkers set out to remedy the social injustices of their time, and it was mostly the world before 1914. Their thinking colours much of Labour thought today. Once upon a time it was daring to belong to the Fabian Society ; today it is respectable. Respect- ability has many virtues, but it is not in itself a creative force.
Political Labour's relations with the trade unions are both formal and informal, logical and illogical, all at once. The trade unions provide the Labour Party with its mass membership and with most of its financial backing, but they are also responsible for its uneasy lack of cohesion when in power. Although they live under the same roof in Transport House, the Labour Party and the T.U.C. have no direct links with each other. Only about half the T.U.C.'s affiliated unions are affiliated to the Labour Party, and the T.U.C. itself is theoretically non-political in a party sense ; no member of its own General Council may also sit on the Labour Party's national executive committee. The T.U.C. has no political fund, and makes no contribution to the party-chest.
But while all this is true, it is only one aspect of the complicated and many-sided truth. The Labour Party is governed by a national executive committee of twenty-five elected members, nominations for twelve of whom are expressly reserved to affiliated unions The trade-union members form the largest single group on the executive, other groups being reserved for the constituency parties (seven), women members (five) and "Socialist, Co-operative and Profes- sional organisations" lumped together (one). The leader of the Parliamentary party (Mr. Attlee) and the treasurer (Mr Arthul Greenwood) are ex officio members of the executive. In theory, the trade unionists, if in some crisis they voted as a block, could be out-voted, but in practice this could not happen, because, if the unions were both united and determined, they would be bound to have support on the "political" side of the executive ; in any case, they could carry the day on any question with their block vote at a party conference.
Trade-union influence in the party, however, is not merely a matter of voting-strength. Individual unions help to finance the Labour Party both by direct grants and by undertaking financial responsibility for their " own " candidates. The unions " spon- sored " 125 candidates in this way in 1945, and they will sponsor at least as many, probably rather more, in the coming election. In addition, of course, there are contributions to local parties and to national funds. A special " levy " of is. a head on affiliated membership in 1946—collected during 1947 and 1948—raised about £143,000 for party propaganda and development, and at Blackpool last year trade-union leaders undertook to. help in raising £400,000 for a "General Election Fund." In 1948 (the last year for which published accounts are available) trade-union affiliation fees con- tributed £129,000 to the party's ordinary income.
Although only about half the T.U.C.'s unions are affiliated to the labour Party, they include all the major unions and account for some five-eighths of the membership ; and though members of the General Council of the T.U.C. are not permitted to sit on the party's executive, the National Union of Mineworkers, the Trans- port and General Workers, the General and Municipal Workers, the National Union of Railwaymen, the Railway Clerks Association, the National Union of Seamen, the Amalgamated Society of Wood- workers and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers all have representatives on both bodies. This explains how somebody like Mr. Bevin can leave the General Council of the T.U.C. and at once become a dominating figure in the Labour Party.
Trade-union strength is seldom fully exerted on the party, because the unions are usually either prepared to support the general policies of the party's political leaders, or not sufficiently united (or interested) effectively to oppose them. They forced the party to break with Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in 1931, and that was a notable example of collective trade-union refusal to follow Labour's political leaders beyond a certain point. Even Mr. J. H. Thomas's close associations with the trade-union side of the movement could not prevent the break, nor his own union (the N.U.R.) from expelling him. The Labour Party might have to face a similar split if a Labour Government tried to impose a wages policy that was totally unacceptable to the unions. On balance, trade union power—potential rather than exercised—is probably a useful brake on the wilder political theoreticians in the Labour movement. But the extra-Parliamentary links it imposes on a Labour Government —the relations, informal, perhaps, rather than formal, between Transport House and Downing Street—suggest certain constitu- tional problems. Some have begun to emerge in the last four years, and if there is a Labour Government after the coming election they may demand serious attention.
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