How Important Was the First World War in the Growth of the Labour Party in the Period from 1918 to 1924.
Although the First World War played quite a large role in the growth of the labour party there were many other factors that contributed to their rise in popularity. Such as, the split of the coalition, the representation of the peoples act, and finally Clause IV.
During the war the party was led by Arthur Henderson who was the first Labour MP to get into parliament and he played a great role in the War-time coalition. After a disagreement with Lloyd George in 1917, Henderson resigned from the War Cabinet. This benefited the Labour party because Henderson was able to focus of reorganising the party. This included being more efficient, more organised, the funding of the party was split efficiently and they drafted the Labour Constitution. This helped their growth because it gave them a lot of time to plan how they was going to work about gaining more support over the other parties and to be able to be and efficient stable party.
However, the split of the coalition led to the unpopularity of other parties because the British public felt that the Liberals and Conservatives were unreliable and not strong enough to run the country. The split of this coalition resulted mainly because of U-turns, failures and tension between both the parties. One of the examples of a U-turn was the breaking of pledges that the powers of the House of Lords would be strengthened. The last straw for the coalition was the 'Chanak Crisis' which seemed likely to end up in a war with Turkey, and by this time many stable conservatives including backbench MP's say Lloyd George as a liability and the coalition was failing in its basic purpose; preventing the rise of the Labour party. As a result of their unpopularity, they were actually helping the Labour Party because the electorate was looking for a stable government that wouldn’t go back on their policies and almost cause another war because they didn’t want that.
The Representation of the Peoples act of 1918, gave the vote to more
During the war the party was led by Arthur Henderson who was the first Labour MP to get into parliament and he played a great role in the War-time coalition. After a disagreement with Lloyd George in 1917, Henderson resigned from the War Cabinet. This benefited the Labour party because Henderson was able to focus of reorganising the party. This included being more efficient, more organised, the funding of the party was split efficiently and they drafted the Labour Constitution. This helped their growth because it gave them a lot of time to plan how they was going to work about gaining more support over the other parties and to be able to be and efficient stable party.
However, the split of the coalition led to the unpopularity of other parties because the British public felt that the Liberals and Conservatives were unreliable and not strong enough to run the country. The split of this coalition resulted mainly because of U-turns, failures and tension between both the parties. One of the examples of a U-turn was the breaking of pledges that the powers of the House of Lords would be strengthened. The last straw for the coalition was the 'Chanak Crisis' which seemed likely to end up in a war with Turkey, and by this time many stable conservatives including backbench MP's say Lloyd George as a liability and the coalition was failing in its basic purpose; preventing the rise of the Labour party. As a result of their unpopularity, they were actually helping the Labour Party because the electorate was looking for a stable government that wouldn’t go back on their policies and almost cause another war because they didn’t want that.
The Representation of the Peoples act of 1918, gave the vote to more