NEW OPPOSITION GROUPING

Southland Times, Issue 23675, 25 November 1938, Page 5

NEW OPPOSITION GROUPING

NATIONAL CAMPAIGN IN BRITAIN FOREIGN POLICY BASIS OF ALIGNMENT (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received November 24, 8.50 p.m.) LONDON, November 24. Executive officials of the Labour and co-operative parties in the House of Commons have decided to unite in a national campaign against the Government’s foreign policy. Labour members today will discuss the possibility of forming a “National Opposition” in Parliament, but the majority, it is believed, regard the suggestion as impracticable.

The leaders of the Labour Party and the co-operative parties met privately in London on Wednesday to discuss a campaign to overthrow the Government. The fact that the agenda did not exclude consideration of a policy for this purpose was one factor which gave rise to reports of plans for the formation of a “National Opposition”—-a united front of Liberals and Labour, with some Conservative dissidents and Independents—not only for the defeat of the Prime Minister (Mr Neville Chamberlain) but to prepare as an alternative Government. Official Labour sources, however, denied that overtures had come from other quarters aiming at the defeat of the Government, and declared that the present intention of the Labour Party was to fight the next General Election as the only alternative Government.