The New Opposition and the Old

Abstract

In spite of its 1951 pledge to work with the Conservatives so long as they played fair with the labour movement, and in spite of its fears of being identified as part of the ‘opposition’, especially at a time when the governing party was led by the principal author of The Middle Way, the TUC distanced itself after 1959 from both the government and the Civil Service in a way that would have astonished the architects of the 1944 White Paper. Although its members still shared many of the FBI’s aims, such as an enlarged international monetary system and Britain’s eventual integration in the European Community1 (even if for different reasons), it became less inclined to work with them and positively antipathetic to the BEC. The main source of conflict with government and employers was wages and the question whether, at the alarming rate which developed after 1956, they caused inflation; but the internal condition of the labour movement itself virtually precluded real co-operation. Profound changes took place in the late 1950s which affected the direction and leadership of most large unions, at exactly the moment of greatest involvement in the Labour Party’s fratricidal struggles. Any call for sacrifice or wage restraint like that put out by the TUC in 1948 would have led to member unions’ rebellion or even disaffiliation; a conclusion which crippled politically those members of the TUC’s main committees which had to review the dismal evidence that seemed to justify their critics.