The promise of a socialist dawn in Britain

In this TL Arthur Henderson, as leader of the Labour Party instead of Ramsay MacDonald, becomes Prime Minister of a minority Labour government in January 1924. Unlike MacDonald in OTL Henderson does not call a general election in October 1924 after having been defeated in the House of Commons over the Campbell case. The Labour government stays in power until 1927 or 1928, and perhaps longer depending on the result of the general election in either of those years.

The minor POD is that in the general election of December 1918, Arthur Henderson contests the withdrawn constituency of Barnard Castle in County Durham which he had represented for Labour since 1903. In OTL he left his political base in the north-east of England and stood for East Ham South in the east London suburbs where he came third. Henderson holds Barnard Castle with a majority of 1,829.

The major POD is that in February 1921, after the resignation of William Adamson, Henderson is elected leader of the Labour Party by Labour MPs in a straight fight with John Clynes.

In the general election on 15 November 1922, Henderson holds his Barnard Castle constituency with a majority of 173 in a straight fight with a Tory. In OTL the Tories gained that seat from Labour by a majority of 219. The result of the general election is the same as in OTL, except Conservative 343 (344), Labour 143 (142).

After the general election Henderson successfully resists an attempt by Ramsay MacDonald to be elected Labour Party leader.

Otherwise events as in OTL. Stanley Baldwin, the Conservative Prime Minister, calls a general election for 6 December 1923 on the issue of tariffs. Result was Conservatives 255 seats, Labour 197 seats, Liberals 156 seats, others 7 seats. For further explanation see Post #3 on this thread.

The days and weeks after the general election were filled by plots and intrigues. In OTL and in this TL there was a plot by people like Sir Austen Chamberlain, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, and Lords Birkenhead, Beaverbrook and Rothermere, and others who hankered for a return of a Conservative/Liberal coalition, whereby Baldwin would resign immediately as Prime Minister and be replaced by a 'moderate' figure such as Chamberlain. The names of Sir Edward Grey and Reginald McKenna were mentioned.

This plot had little success because Baldwin refused to resign before being defeated in the House of Commons on the King's Speech, and because most Conservative MPs were against it.

on 30 October 1923 Lord Robert Cecil resigned from Baldwin's cabinet as Lord Privy Seal because of his opposition to Baldwin fighting the general election on the issue of tariffs. He also decided not to contest his Hitchin seat in the general election because of his opposition to tariffs. On 11 December 1923 Arthur Henderson met Cecil for secret talks. He said that the Labour Party was lacking in men who were well qualified for the post of Foreign Secretary. If he became Prime Minister he would like to offer that position to Cecil. He said that internationalism as expressed by support for the League of Nations would be at the heart of his government's foreign policy. Henderson assured Cecil that if accepted his offer, he could no longer be a member of the Conservative Party, or join a party opposed to Labour, but would not be obliged to join the Labour Party. He said that if he became Prime Minister he would appoint James O'Grady, the Labour MP for Leeds, South-East, as British ambassador to the Soviet Union. He would use all his influence to ensure that Cecil was the Labour-supported candidate at the subsequent by-election. Cecil could stand as an independent Labour candidate.

Cecil agreed to Henderson's offer. The next day he announced his resignation from the Conservative Party.

Baldwin made the following changes to his cabinet on 30 October 1923 following the resignation of Lord Robert Cecil:

The Duke of Devonshire from Colonial Secretary to Lord Privy Seal; Leo Amery from First Lord of the Admiralty to Colonial Secretary. Archibald Boyd-Carpenter was promoted from Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty to First Lord.

Because Arthur Henderson had served in war-time coalition cabinets from May 1915 to August 1917, and unlike Ramsay MacDonald supported British involvement in the Great War, in this TL the Labour Party polled on average a little under one percent more in each constituency in the 1923 general election compared to OTL. The number of MPs elected in the general election were as follows (OTL in brackets):

Conservative: 255 (258)
Labour: 197 (191)
Liberal: 156 (159)
Others: 7 (7).

Boyd-Carpenter lost his Bradford, North seat to a Liberal, as he did in OTL, but continued in office as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Interesting, please continue.

Lord Robert Cecil's resignation from the Conservative Party on 12 December 1923 gave rise to press speculation as to which political party he would now join - Liberal or Labour.

In 1920 and 1921 he was courted by the Independent Liberals (Asquithian Liberals) who thought his political home was with them. In the spring of 1921 he tried to form a centrist movement of progressive Conservatives and Independent Liberals with Viscount Grey (the former Foreign Secretary at its head). On the other hand Lord Salisbury felt with alarm that that he was drifting towards the Labour Party. (1)

Cecil and Stafford Cripps were similar in that both were idealistic and devout High Church Anglicans. Cecil was

a kind of cross between Savonarola and Stafford Cripps

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In his memoirs All the Way published in 1949, Cecil

professed himself to be now a supporter of the Labour Party.

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Meanwhile in this TL Cecil kept quiet for the time being about his future political allegiance.

(1) The information and quotations in this paragraph and the next one are taken from Consensus and Disunity: The Lloyd George Coalition Government 1918-1922 by Kenneth O. Morgan, Oxford University Press, 1979.

11 December 1923. The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party voted, with only two votes against, that Labour should form a government by itself in the event of the Conservative government being defeated on the King's Speech.

12 December 1923. The Parliamentary Labour Party ((PLP) endorsed the decision of the NEC voted by a large majority that the party should form a government. Left-wingers in the PLP voted against because a minority Labour government would be dependent on the Liberals.

13 and 14 December 1923. Discussions between leading members of the Labour and Liberal Parties as to the terms of Liberal support for a minority Labour government. The negotiators were as follows:

For Labour: Arthur Henderson, John Clynes, Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden.

For the Liberals: Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George, Sir John Simon, Vivian Phillips (their Chief Whip in the House of Commons).

All the negotiators rejected a Labour/Liberal coalition government. Simon wanted the Liberals to defeat Baldwin's government on the King's Speech, but to turn out the subsequent Labour government at the earliest opportunity, by joining with the Tories. The other Liberals wanted to reach an agreement with Labour to keep them in office until 1928.

Henderson proposed that if he became Prime Minister a Labour government would, in its first three months, introduce a bill in the House of Commons to provide for the alternative vote (AV) for elections to that House. It would allow time for debate on any amendment tabled which would substitute STV for AV. Labour MPs would have a free vote on the bill and any amendments. This proposal was agreed unanimously.

It was agreed by all the negotiators except Simon that the Liberal Party would be free to vote against a Labour government, but would support it on votes of confidence.

In the evening of 14 December a statement was issued to the press on the terms of the agreement reached. However although there was sizeable opposition within the Liberal Party to keeping a Labour government in power, most of the leading opponents had been defeated in the general election: Winston Churchill, Sir Hamar Greenwood, Sir Alfred Mond.

18 December 1923. The Parliamentary Liberal Party voted by a large majority to endorse the Labour/Liberal agreement. Sir John Simon abstained.

Parliament assembled on 8 January 1924. The debate on the Address (the King's Speech) began in the House of Commons on 15 January 1924. A Labour amendment was moved by John Clynes on 17 January. During the debate Austen Chamberlain appealed to the Liberals not to vote with Labour, saying that they would be destroyed if they put and kept the Labour Party in power.

The vote was taken on 21 January. The result was as follows:

For the amendment: 332 votes
Against the amendment: 252 votes.

Nine Liberals voted with the Tories.

Baldwin resigned the same day. The next day Arthur Henderson became Prime Minister.

I am glad to see you've started another timeline. I really enjoy your work

Thank you Julius Vogel.

Here is the cabinet which Arthur Henderson formed on 22 January 1924 (the posts marked * are the same as in Ramsay MacDonald's government formed on the same day in OTL):

Prme Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons: Arthur Henderson
Lord Chancellor: Viscount Haldane *
Lord President of the Council: Lord Parmoor *
Lord Privy Seal: James Ramsay MacDonald
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Philip Snowden *
Foreign Secretary: Lord Robert Cecil
Home Secretary: John Clynes
First Lord of the Admiralty: Viscount Chelmsford *
Minister of Agriculture: Noel Buxton *
Secretary of State for Air: William Leach
Secretary of State for the Colonies: Edmund Dene Morel
President of the Board of Education: Charles Trevelyan *
Minister of Health: John Wheatley *
Secretary of State for India: Sidney Webb
Minister of Labour: James Thomas
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: Lord Arnold
Postmaster-General: Vernon Hartshorn *
Secretary for Scotland: William Adamson *
President of the Board of Trade: Josiah Wedgwood
Secretary of State for War: Lieutenant-Colonel David Watts-Morgan
First Commissioner of Works: Fred Jowett. *

Law ministers (outside the cabinet):

Attorney-General: Sir Patrick Hastings *
Solicitor-General: Sir Edward Hemmerde.

Lord Robert Cecil had joined the Labour Party on 11 January 1924. Besides Cecil, Parmoor and Chelmsford were former Tories. Haldane, Buxton, Morel, Trevelyan, Arnold, Wedgwood, and Hemmerde were former Liberals.

So what will happen when the Depression hits? Will Keynes or nationalisation save Britain?

With an actual Socialist in power will there be nationalisation?

Originally posted by Blackadder mk 2
So what will happen when the Depression hits?

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That remains to be seen. I have not decided that far ahead.

With an actual Socialist in power will there be nationalisation.

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Not while there is a minority Labour government dependent on Liberal suppport, unless enough Liberals vote for nationalisation.

Arthur Henderson appointed James Maxton to the post of parliamentary secretary to to the board of education. (1)

On 23 January 1926 Henderson addressed the parliamentary Labour Party. He told them that the government would not try to enact a programme of full-blooded socialism which would be defeated by combined Tory and Liberal votes. Instead they would work with progressive Liberals to enact a programme of social reform. Labour must show to the British people that they are not only idealistic, but also competent. About twenty to thirty Liberal MPs will vote mostly with the Tories and about thirty to forty mostly with us. That leaves about eighty to a hundred Liberals who will vote with us or the Tories in varying amounts, or they might abstain. It is their support which will be vital to get our legislation enacted.

He said that Liberal support had peaked in the general election. They had won middle-class seats from the Tories because of that party's advocacy of tariffs. Before the next general election Baldwin will have renounced that policy and those Liberal voters will have returned to the Tories. At the last election we won more seats from the Liberals than they won from us.

He concluded by saying that if we hold our nerve we will win the next general election with an overall majority.

On 1st February Henderson appointed James O'Grady, Labour MP for Leeds, East from 1906-1918, and for Leeds, South-East from 1918, as British ambassador to the Soviet Union. In April 1917 O'Grady headed a British government mission to persuade Kerensky to stay in the Great War on the side of the Entente Powers, he successfully negotiated an exchange of prisoners with the Soviet Union in 1919, and had been involved in international trade union led efforts to relieve the Russian famine in 1921.

The appointment of O'Grady meant a vacancy in Leeds, South-East. Lord Robert Cecil (the foreign secretary) was selected as the Labour candidate. In the 1918, 1922 and 1923 general elections O'Grady had won in straight fights with Liberal candidates. The 1923 result was Labour 63.4%, Liberal 36.6%. Therefore the Liberals had received Conservative votes. The official Liberal position was to not fight the by-election. But the constituency party wanted to put up a candidate. The Conservatives said that if the Liberals did not fight the by-election they would put up a candidate, but they were very reluctant to do so because of their low level of support in the constituency. Mr. W. T. Whitely, the Liberal candidate in the general election stood as a Liberal with Conservative support. Several leading members of the Conservative constituency association signed his nomination papers.

The result of the by-election held on 28 February 1924 was as follows:

Lord Robert Cecil (Labour): 71.6%
W.T. Whiteley (Liberal): 28.4%.

Turnout fell from 54.1% to 48.8%.

(1) In OTL there was speculation that Maxton would be offered that post by Ramsay MacDonald.

Excellent so far.

Thank you Owain

In early March 1924 Lloyd George and Winston Churchill had dinner together. They discussed the political situation. Churchill had left the Liberal Party because it had put in a minority Labour government. Churchill was standing in the by-election in the constituency of Westminster, Abbey as a Constitutionalist. The by-election was caused by the death of John Nicholson (Conservative). In the general election he had been returned unopposed. A Liberal candidate had not yet been selected. It was agreed that Lloyd George would use all his influence to ensure that the Liberals do not contest the by-election, while Churchill pledged that he would not join the Conservative Party during the current parliament, and would keep open the option of rejoining the Liberal Party. Lloyd George said that in the future Liberal support for a Conservative government was possible, perhaps even probable. Asquith, not Lloyd George was Liberal leader, but the latter had the financial power.

The by-election was held on 19 March. In a three-cornered contest Churchill was elected with a majority of 69 over his Conservative opponent, with Fenner Brockway for Labour in a surprisingly good third place. (1)

(1) In OTL Churchill lost by 43 votes to the winning Conservative. Fenner Brockway came a good third. The Liberal candidate polled 291 votes. So his was only a paper candidature.

The House of Commons debated the second reading of the Electoral Reform Bill on 25 and 26 March 1924. The Bill provided for the introduction of the alternative vote (AV) for elections to the House of Commons with effect from the next general election. Voters would be able to vote for candidates in order of preference. If no candidate received 50% plus one of the total vote, the preferences of the third or lower placed candidates would redistributed until a candidate had the required majority. The following University constituencies which elected members by the Single Transferable Vote (STV) would continue to do so: Cambridge (2 members), Combined English (2 members), Oxford (2 members), Combined Scottish (3 members).

John Clynes, the Home Secretary, said that the alternative vote would mean that all members of the House of Commons would be elected with the support of at least half plus one of those who had voted. Now a candidate could be elected with just over a third of the vote in three-party contests and barely a quarter in four-party fights. It would give voters the opportunity to express a preference and would most likely lead to significantly fewer unopposed contests. He said that if the House gave the Bill a second reading, the government would provide time for the later stages, including opportunity for a debate in committee stage on substituting STV for AV.

From the Opposition front bench, Leo Amery for the Conservatives said that he personally would prefer STV to AV, but would vote for second reading so as to have the opportunity to vote for STV in the committee stage. He said that Conservative members would have a free vote.

Only one Conservative besides Amery spoke in favour of the Bill. Those who spoke against said it was part of a squalid deal to keep Labour in power with Liberal votes. AV does not always produce proportional results.

For the Liberals Sir John Simon spoke in support of the Bill. He would have preferred STV but AV was a real improvement over the present system of election.

Winston Churchill, in his first speech since his re-election, spoke in favour of the Bill. He hoped that AV or STV would lead to closer co-operation by the two anti-socialist parties.

The result of the vote on 26 March was as follows:

For second reading: 282 votes
Against second reading: 253 votes
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Majority for: 29 votes
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Interesting - did Churchill make any on the record comment on electoral reform in OTL?

Originally posted by Julius Vogel
did Churchill make any on the record comment on electoral reform in OTL?

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The following information is taken from The Electoral System in Britain 1918-1951, D.E. Butler, Oxford University Press, 1953.

Referring to the period of the Lloyd George coalition government from the beginning of 1919 onwards,

Lord Birkenhead and Mr. Balfour were Vice-Presidents of the P.R. Society, and Mr. Churchill was reported to be 'very sympathetic' to a change.

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The following footnote is given for Churchill: See H.C. Deb. 129, c.22.

On 27 March 1930, while the Speaker's Conference on electoral reform was sitting, Churchill had said:

The key to the present political situation consisted in the reform of the electoral law....he hoped that the attitude of the Conservative party towards the reform of the electoral law would be such as to enable the two non-Socialist parties to find a certain common measure of agreement

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Reported in The Times, 28 March 1930.

On 2 June 1931 in the debate on the third reading of The Representation of the People (No. 2) Bill [which provided for the alternative vote for elections to the House of Commons], Churchill

intervened with a vehement demand for proportional representation in the large cities [...] The alternative vote was the child of fraud and would become the parent of folly

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In this TL the committee stage of the Electoral Reform Bill was taken by a Committee of the Whole House. On 8 April an amendment to substitute the single transferable vote (STV) for the alternative vote (AV), with the exception of six large-size constituencies in the highlands and islands of Scotland: Argyll; Caithness and Sutherland; Inverness; Orkney and Shetland; Ross and Cromarty; Western Isles, was moved from the Liberal benches by Sir John Simon. The amendment was defeated by 244 votes to 278. The breakdown of votes was as follows:

For: Conservative: 18
Labour: 82
Liberal: 139
Others: 5 (including Churchill)
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Total: 244
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Against: Conservative: 190
Labour: 87
Liberal: 1
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Total: 278
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The Commons debated the report stage on 13 and 14 May and the third reading on 15 May. The Bill received a third reading by a majority of 276 votes to 267. The breakdown of votes was as follows (second reading figures in brackets):

For: Conservative: 7 (16)
Labour: 131 (129)
Liberal: 134 (132)
Others: 4 (5, including Churchill)
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Total: 276 (282)
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Against: Conservative: 227 (214)
Labour: 35 (38)
Liberal: 4 (1)
Others: 1 (Churchill)
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Total: 267 (253)
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Regarding Cecil, did he keep his seat, or did he lose it and get elevated to the peerage (as per OTL)? Just intrigued!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Thanks for the citations Pip. I'll take a look

Originally quoted by Grey Wolf
Regarding Cecil, did he keep his seat, or did he lose it and get elevated to the peerage (as per OTL)?

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Cecil did not contest the Hitchin constituency in the general election held on 6 December 1923 general election, for which he had sat as a Conservative, because of his opposition to Baldwin's support of tariffs. In this TL on 11 December Arthur Henderson offered him the post of Foreign Secretary if he was able to form a Labour government with Liberal support. The next day Cecil resigned from the Conservative Party. On 11 January 1924 he joined the Labour Party. On 22 January Arthur Henderson appointed him Foreign Secretary. Cecil was elected Labour MP for Leeds, South-East in a by-election on 28 February.

The Electoral Reform Bill was not opposed by the Conservative leadership at second reading in the House of Lords, though it was rejected by rebel Tory backbenchers. It received a second reading on 4 June 1924 by 54 votes to 17.

In the committee stage two weeks later on 18 June, Lord Balfour from the Conservative Front Bench moved an amendment to substitute the single transferable vote (STV) of three to seven member constituencies for the alternative vote (AV), in all cities which elected three or more MPs. That was 178 constituencies. An independent Boundary Commission would decide how the existing constituencies would be amalgamated to form the new constituencies. Balfour was a Vice President of the P.R. Society. He argued that STV in compact urban areas would not have the disadvantage of geographically large constituencies, but would have the advantage of making every vote count and ensuring that party representation in those cities would roughly correspond to the votes they received.

The Labour government was in a difficult position regarding the amendment. It was officially committed to AV for all constituencies (except for the ten university members already elected by STV), but Lord Parmoor, the Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords, supported STV. He was also a Vice President of the P.R. Society.

In his speech Parmoor said that if the amendment was passed the government would initiate all party talks to establish the widest possible agreement when the Bill returned to the House of Commons. The amendment was passed by 85 votes to 28. Parmoor and a majority of Labour peers voted for the amendment.

The Bill received its third reading in the House of Lords on 26 June and was returned to the Commons.

The representatives in the all party talks were Arthur Henderson, John Clynes and Ramsay MacDonald for Labour; Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain and Leo Amery for the Tories; and Herbert Asquith, David Lloyd George and Sir John Simon for the Liberals. They all, except for MacDonald, agreed to support the Lords' amendment when it was debated in the Commons.

On 2 July, John Clynes, the Home Secretary, moved the acceptance of the Lords' amendment. Among the advantages of STV compared to AV in large cities - those with a population of more than 200,000 - were that it would provide a cushion for the parties when they fell on bad times. He gave the example of Manchester. In the previous general election it had returned one Conservative, four Labour and five Liberal members. In the 1922 general election seven Conservative and three Labour members were elected. As two five member constituencies under STV each party's representation would be at least one, probably two members.

The amendment was passed by a large majority. Ramsay MacDonald was conveniently absent paired with a Tory who supported the majority.

The Bill passed quickly through the Commons and again through the Lords. It received the Royal Assent on 11 July.

To summarise the Electoral Reform Act provided that at the next general election 178 members in cities which currently returned three or more members of parliament, plus 10 university members, making a total of 188 members, would be elected by STV; the remaining 427 members (615-188) would be elected by AV.