HOMELAND LABOUR PARTY

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 July 1932, Page 4

HOMELAND LABOUR PARTY

IS SPLIT IMMINENT? LONDON, July 19.' r l < he long and bitter quarrel between members'of the Parliamentary Laboui Party and the Independent Labour Party has come to a head at last. It is almost certain that the emergency ■ conference to be held by the Independents at Branford on July 30 will usher in a new revolutionary Socialist Party, led by Mr Maxton, who will be followed to the extreme left by Mr Fenner-Brockway, Mr George Buchanan, Miss Jennie Lee, Mr Campbell Stephen, and Mr John McGovern. If, as is likely, proposed motions are passed, the new Socialist Party will be built up on the basis ‘of the old 1.L.P., but if, on the other hand, they arc rejected, Mr Maxton and his followers declare that they will found it on the ruins of the I.L.P. Whether the proposed revolutionary party will ever grow strong enough to develop a. backbone remains, to be seen. The Parliamentary . Labour Party affects indifference to it, but is ' secretly working to defeat Mr Maxton and his colleagues at Bradford and ) drive them out of the I.L.P. The Labour unions-, which have several times been denounced by the Clydeside group of crusaders as a “selfish and uninspired bureaucracy,” arc unlikely to be frightened by the Bradford conference. They stand firmly behind official Labour and are strong enough

to protect their ranks from any process of white-anting. Thus the difficulties confronting the breakaways are imposing, so much oo that it would not be surprising if, after its first big flare, the now movement sputters and dies out. About the most unpopular word in the vocabulary of Britain is “revolution." Whatever the turbulent population of the Clyde may want, the very last, thing desired by all classes in England is social turmoil. Therefore no party which calls.’ itself revolutionary has the slightest prospect of surviving as a political identity. Mr Maxton is careful, of course, not to advocate violence, and is all for revolution by constitutional means, but unfortunately for himself and his opinions he is not taken very seriously in England, where he is regarded merely an one of the more exciting curiosities of* the House of Commons. , ' •