NO APOLOGY FROM BEVAN

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27626, 5 April 1955, Page 11

NO APOLOGY FROM BEVAN

Constituents Told Of Activities

LONDON, April 3. Mr Aneurin Bevan, the Left-wing Labour leader, whose outspoken views brought him to the brink of expulsion from the British labour Party, said tonight that he made no apology for his activities. He told an audience of his constituents in Ebbw Vale, Monmouthhtre. that some people deplored that there should have been any argument within the Labour Party. He said: “I make no apology to anybody whatsoever. I think this argument so important that it ought to be carried on before the eyes and ears ot the people. It is not something that ean be -conducted behind closed doors. “I solemnly declare that I am not prepared to buy a successful public life at the cost of a shameful silence about the things I think. ...’’ (The end of the sentence was lost in cheers and applause.) The speech was the first Mr Bevan has made to his constituents since his colleagues in the House of Commons voted to disown him, with the result that he now must sit as an independent Labour member. He escaped expulsion from the Labour Party proper after promising to submit to the party discipline in future. On Saturday night the leaders of the local Labour Party voted confidence in him. Referring to “weapons of unimaginable destruction,” Mr Bevan said that statesmen were still wondering and pondering “whether these weapons are &to be kept under control or er mankind is going to destroy itself in the second half ot the twentieth century,”

“H belonging to the Labour movement means that we are going to be driven to vote for propositions in which we do not believe and in which we think the fate pt mankind will be involved, then no discipline will ever drive me to vote for such proposals.” He said that he was quite prepared to go on disagreeing with his colleagues.