The Labour Party in Turmoil, 1922–40

Abstract

When the Labour Party became the official Opposition in the House of Commons after the election of 1922 it introduced a significant change regarding the party leadership. Ramsay MacDonald, who had been elected chairman of the parliamentary party in place of Clynes, was referred to as ‘Chairman and Leader’. This titular change represented an important shift of power in the Labour Party; as a potential government, the PLP now began to emphasise its greater independence of the extra-parliamentary party, and as potential prime minister the leader of the PLP was increasing his power both at the expense of the party outside Parliament and within the PLP itself. Since 1906 the party had changed its chairman no less than six times and the post had never won the power and status accredited to the leader in the Conservative and Liberal Parties. After 1922 the Labour Party more clearly conformed to the practices of British parliamentary government, and in spite of opposition to the leadership concept within the party inside and outside Parliament the period from 1922 to the establishment of the National government in 1931 was a period of the undoubted domination of MacDonald over all sections of the party.