Roy Jenkins - ‘Things were never quite the same for the Labour Party after June 1975’

‘When your allies won’t come out and fight, that really takes the heart out of you’ (Shirley Williams)

‘I knew we had  to fight for one member one vote in January (1981 ) and if we went down in that conference, then either we created a new party or I would leave politics’ (David Owen)

Part 2

In his book ‘A Life at the Centre’ Roy Jenkins takes the reader through all the background manoverings that went on inside the LabourParty at its highest levels and indeed the other parties as well in preparation for the EEC Referendum Harold Wilson had promised would take place should Labour be returned to Government.

Jenkins had fought hard against Wilson’s plan of promising renegotiations with the EEC and then to hold a referendum. It was on the question of the referendum that he had resigned as Deputy Leader in April 1972 as also did George Thomson and Harold Lever from the Shadow Cabinet and Dick Taverne and David Owen as front bench spokesmen.

But as circumstance often does Roy Jenkins found himself at the centre of the referendum campaign. Approaches had been made from the other parties via John Harris - a very close confidant of Jenkins who had, without offending, adopted all of Roy’s mannerisms! – and Bill Rodgers that Roy should head  a cross-party ‘umbrella’ organisation to campaign for a ‘yes’ vote.  When this was agreed upon Wilson and Callaghan were far from best pleased with this turn of events and the account in the book of what transpired is quite fascinating.

There was of course another delicate matter to settle and that was since Mrs Thatcher had just unseated Ted Heath as Leader of the Opposition Jenkins needed an assurance that she was going to be on board..However Jenkins did lead the cross-party campaign organisation for my part I was one of the campaign co-ordinators in Wales. The final outcome was a resounding ‘yes’ vote with over 65% voting to remain in the EEC.

From the left:
Jo Grimond, Cledwyn Hughes, Roy Jenkins, Willie Whitelaw, Reginald Maudling and Con O'Neill

It was during that campaign that Jenkins came to know David Steel and he comments:

‘Of all the people I dealt with during the campaign he was one of the best’

It was inevitable that the pro-EEC members of the Labour party having worked in such a cross-party atmosphere totally at variance with the mood and views of the majority of their Labour colleagues found the experience pleasant, interesting and thought provoking.  Roy Jenkins commented:

‘Things were never quite the same for the Labour Party after June 1975’

Back in 1972 he had warned Wilson and the Shadow Cabinet that a referendum

‘Would have a loosening effect upon the tribal loyalties of British party politics’

So it proved to be.

Throughout the second half of the 1970’s  a few moderate MPs were being subjected to the same treatment as Dick Taverne had been through some years earlier. These included in particular Eddie Griffiths, Frank Tomney, Eddie Milne and Reg Prentice. 

The Reg Prentice affair had far reaching consequences. First there was a NEC commissioned report on ‘entryism’ into the Labour Party by a group known as the Militant Tendency. Although the report was never published it was clear that there was extreme left wing infiltration into constituency parties. Although he survived the onslaught Reg Prentice eventually resigned from the Labour Government in 1976 and sat as an Independent MP for a while before joining the Conservatives in 1977. After the 1979 Tory General Election victory he was returned as a Tory MP and also served as a Minister in Mrs Thatcher’s Government.  Labour social democrats felt betrayed and were far from best pleased with Prentice because his action did not help their cause in fact he made it a bit more difficult .

There were three groups within the Labour Party that were campaigning in their different ways for moderate policies and social democracy. First a small group of right wing Labour MPs had established the Manifesto group in December 1974 and it was also a forum for putting together a distinctive social democratic philosophy. In March 1977 they published a document entitled ‘What We Must Do – A Democratic Socialist Approach to Britain’s Crisis’. Then there was a group of moderate Labour local councillors launched a pressure group in June 1975 called The Social Democratic Alliance (SDA). But as the turmoil and divisions intensified within the party a much larger group of social democrat MPs came together in early 1977 to form the Campaign for Labour Victor (CLV) – which was a link to the Campaign for Democratic Socialism of the early 1960’s.

The formation of CLV was a clear sign that people meant business and that a split from the Labour Party was one day inevitable and it was indeed the CLV that first raised the issue of ‘one member one vote’ within the party. Of the Labour Government of the time only David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams joined the group – some other cabinet members declined to commit themselves including Roy Hattersley, Dennis Healey and Merlyn Rees.

By this time Roy Jenkins was on his way out of Labour Party and British politics as he was to become President of the EEC in January 1977 so the ‘effective leader’ of the social democrats was leaving the scene. In the same year Tony Crosland died, Brian Walden left to become presenter of ITV’s programme ‘Weekend World’ and then John Mackintosh died in 1978.  But despite the loss of these gifted individuals the pact with the Liberals from March 1977 to the autumn 1978 enabled the social democrats within the party to be in a relatively optimistic frame of mind. But it wasn’t to last long. 

Jim Callaghan, who was now Prime Minister after Harold Wilson’s surprise resignation in 1977, had been widely expected to call a general election in the autumn of 1978, when most opinion polls showed Labour had a narrow lead. However instead, he decided to extend the wage restraint policy for another year in the hope that the economy would be in a better shape in time for a 1979 election. This proved to be a big mistake – repeated by Gordon Brown in 2010!

The extension of wage restraint was unpopular with the trade unions, and the government's attempt to impose a "5% limit" on pay rises caused resentment among workers and trade unions, with whom relations broke down. During the winter of 1978-79 there were widespread strikes in favour of higher pay rises which caused significant disruption to everyday life. 

The strikes affected lorry drivers, railway workers, car workers and local government and hospital workers. Rubbish was not collected for weeks, the burying of the dead the same, there was a three day working week and a schedule of domestic power cuts, These came to be dubbed as the "Winter of Discontent". 

After the winter of discontent and Callaghan’s fatal prevarication over calling the election Mrs Thatcher won the 1979 General Election. The result was not good for Labour with its share of the popular vote dropping to its lowest since 1931 (36.9%).  So this gave added impetus to the moderates and social democrats and in July 1979 David Marquand , who after a period with Roy Jenkins in Brussels was Professor of Contemporary History and Politics at Salford University wrote an article headed ‘ Inquest on a Movement’ and he concluded:-

‘I do not believe that the job of revising traditional welfare-state social democracy can be done within the Labour Party or that active Labour politicians can contribute much to it’

Then Stephen Hasler the co-founder of SLA concluded in his book ‘The Tragedy of Labour’ (1980):-

‘The emergence of a new political force in British politics – whether created by the transformation of one of the major parties, a realignment, the Liberals, or from outside the political elite – will break the cycle of alternating failures’

Gradually from the second half of 1979 onwards the three groupings began to find common ground so that a year later the birth of a new party was within sight. It is true to say that the three groups had for some time differing reasons for being dissatisfied with the Labour Party. The Jenkinsites had always been the most enthusiastic about a new party, the SDA initially hoped it could help to purge the party of its left-wingers and the CLV which by now was led by the ‘Gang of Three’ (Owen, Williams and Rodgers) possibly were the most reluctant to break with Labour until a train events in 1980 finally made it clear to them that Labour was a lost cause on Europe, unilateral disarmament, the proposed system of choosing the party leader and the principle of ‘one member one vote’.

The question as to whether a new party would one day be formed became a more public matter when Roy Jenkins, as his term of office as President of the European Commission was to come to an end in 1980 delivered the Dimbleby lecture in November 1979 ‘Home Thoughts from Abroad’

Its impact in the media and the country was immediate and although Roy never uttered words about a new party he left little room for the imagination as to what would happen after his term of office in Brussels ended. This led Bill Rodgers, speaking a week later,  at a meeting in Abertillery to give the Labour party ‘a year to save itself’.

Matters grew apace after that and then came the May 1980 Special Conference at Wembley  which must have been a chastening experience for those social democrats unsure of whether or when to give up on the Labour party. The policy document that was put before the conference and was endorsed was strongly anti-EEC and pro-unilateralist. I remember watching David Owen being booed as he spoke when he tried to defend multilateralism.

I cannot vouch for his emotions and feelings but it must have been the end of the line for a former Foreign Secretary with considerable talent and gravitas. He must have known then that he would never now become leader of the Labour Party. So it was that on June 7 1980 the ‘Gang of Three’ issued a statement that they would leave the party if it adopted withdrawal from the EEC as official Labour Party policy.

But despite all that, according to all the records, there was still a lot of uncertainty and apprehension in the air as to the way ahead for the social democrats. Roy Jenkins was fully aware of all this uncertainty and addressed the Westminster Press Gallery on June 9 where he compared any new party like an experimental aeroplane which might either

‘soar in the sky’ or just ‘finish up a few fields from the end of the runway’.

In mid –June the Labour Party Commission of Inquiry supported for the establishment of an Electoral College as the new system to choose its next leader and endorsed the mandatory re-selection of MPs. Within a month the SDA moving at a quicker pace than others announced that it would be running up to 200 candidates against the official Labour Party candidates at the next General Election if the proposals became party policy at the September Conference. But these intentions drew little support from Labour social democrat MPs except Neville Sandelson.  

But events were moving inexorably leftwards inside the party and when the list of conference resolutions was published it was clear that the Labour Party was going to be for unilateral disarmament, withdrawal from the EEC, renationalisation without compensation of industries that the Tories had denationalised and would introduce the Electoral College to elect the future leader and deputy leader.

The response from ‘The Gang of Three’ came in an open letter published in the Guardian on August 1 1980 and in many ways whilst referring to the possibility of a ‘new democratic socialist party’ they continued to remain ambivalent about a new centre party. 

The Jenkinsites however were pursuing a different approach and were engaged in informal talks with the Liberals and David Marquand spoke at the Liberal Party Assembly in September.

Most certainly Roy was greatly attracted to Liberalism and some have argued that he was more of a Liberal and Steel more of a Social Democrat. I know there is a lot of truth in that because from conversations and several exchange of letters between the two of us in 1979 – 80 as well as seeing him in Brussels and East Hendred the possibility of joining the Liberals was certainly on the agenda albeit that it was the second option only to be pursued should the Gang of Three not deliver!  Roy also told me that David Steel would rather that the social democrats waited until there was a bigger breakaway from the Labour party and then form a new Social Democratic Party.

So it was all in the hands of the ‘Gang of Three’ and their supporters who were still hoping against hope that their threats to leave the party would cause the Shadow Cabinet, NEC and the Conference to have a change of heart and back down. Of course I was nowhere near the action but it all seemed to me at the time a forlorn and futile hope the left were now fully in control and on the march.  Shirley Williams was desponded and referring to Hattersley and Healey in particular said

‘When your allies won’t come out and fight, that really takes the heart out of you’

However there was to be one last throw of the dice. Although the Conference voted to change the method of electing the leader it failed to agree on the composition of the Electoral College. So the social democrats  at a CLV meeting in London October 25 made it clear that if the voting system was not going to be ‘one member one vote’ then they would leave the party . In fact David Owen said that when the shadow cabinet in November agreed to oppose the ‘one member one vote’ proposal:

‘that was the time I knew we had  to fight for one member one vote in January (1981 ) and if we went down in that conference, then either we created a new party or I would leave politics’

On November 10 1980 Michael Foot was elected Leader of the Labour Party!

Part 3 to follow 

The imminent return of Roy Jenkins from Brussels; ‘The Gang of Three’ become the ‘The Gang of Four’ some insight into the goings on as the social democrats moved ever closer to the inevitable and to March 26th 1981