The Impact of the Ulster Crisis (1912–1914) on the British Labour Party

Abstract

The British Parliamentary system has broken down in Ulster as it has broken down many times in Ireland in the past. In fact, many events in the current agonizing crisis of Northern Ireland suggest scenes from the past. The mutual hatreds of Catholics and Protestants seem unchanged from the seventeenth century world of Cromwell and William of Orange. The Orange Lodges of 1973 seem the same as those of 1795. William Craig's Ulster Vanguard is a conscious revival of Sir Edward Carson's Ulster Volunteers of 1912-1914. The Provisional I.R.A. in 1973 attempts to re-enact the history of the Irish Republican Army of Michael Collins in 1920 and 1921. One element from past Irish troubles, however, is fortunately lacking. This breakdown in Ireland, unlike all earlier breakdowns, has created no crisis in Britain. In the past, British Governments have been badly shaken by Irish troubles. This time, however, there is no battle over Ireland either within the British parties or between the British parties.It was dramatically different in the months between April, 1912, and August, 1914, the period of the battle over the Third Home Rule Bill and the starting point for this paper. This Ulster crisis brought Ireland to the brink of civil war, turned the Conservative Party into sponsors of rebellion, and produced something like a mutiny among the officers of a British Army unit. These events have been described in several books and in many chapters of political histories and biographies. Indeed, the Ulster crisis and the reactions of the Conservatives, Liberals, and Irish Nationalists have been amply studied. Only one group in the story has been neglected. With the exception of George Dangerfield in his Strange Death of Liberal England, writers on the Ulster crisis virtually ignore the Labour Party. This is easily understood. The battle over Home Rule which initiated the Ulster crisis of 1912-1914 was waged between the Liberal Government allied with the Irish Nationalists on one side and the Conservative Party with their Ulster Unionist wing on the other.