The Women in the Room by Sloane Nan;

Author:Sloane, Nan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 20th century history, Biography: historical, political and military, British and Irish History, Feminism and feminist theory, Gender Studies – women, Political parties, Politics, Social classes, Socialism and left-of-centre politics
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2018-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

7

Suffrage and Sweating

In 1908 both the Labour Party and the Liberal government found themselves with new leaders. Both were significant and in different ways both ushered in new phases for their parties. In Labour’s case, the change followed Keir Hardie’s resignation as chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). His increasing restiveness in the post had been accompanied by rumbling dissatisfaction on the part of many of his colleagues. Ramsay MacDonald was irritated by his failure to take the parliamentary responsibilities of leadership more seriously, while Hardie himself felt that his views were ignored and that his real work lay outside the House of Commons. Even Independent Labour Party (ILP) colleagues such as Philip Snowden began to feel that some kind of crisis was inevitable. Hardie’s leadership, he wrote privately, was ‘a hopeless failure’ because ‘He seems completely absorbed with the suffragettes. I can assure you there is intense dissatisfaction amongst the ILP members. I doubt if he would get two votes if the leadership were voted upon today.’[1]

The PLP was proving tricky to manage on a number of levels, but that was not the only problem the leadership faced. Hardie’s support for Victor Grayson in the Colne Valley by-election had been seen as unhelpful while, fairly or otherwise, there was a belief in some quarters that, had he wanted to, he could have prevented or mitigated the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU)’s actions in Cockermouth. It was all too easy to see why people thought that he was disproportionately committed to the limited suffrage cause, and this came to a head at the Labour Party conference in Belfast in 1907. One of the major issues discussed – controversial then as now – was the degree to which MPs should be bound by Conference decisions. The parliamentary leadership had a very clear line: Conference decisions were advisory only and the PLP had to have the freedom to act as it saw fit. Given that the Party was made up of two separate socialist and trade unionist strands, Hardie argued, there had to be some give and take. ‘There must,’ he said, ‘be some free play between the two sections. Otherwise they were in for a spill.’[2] Delegates agreed with him, and the leadership’s position was passed by a comfortable margin. There was also a victory for them on the question of whether the Labour Party should be a specifically socialist organisation, on which Conference agreed a neutral position. Delegates even decided against making it compulsory for all members to join trade unions.

But the debate on suffrage turned into a major row, with Hardie strongly opposing a move to mandate the PLP to vote against a limited suffrage bill. Not only did he argue against the principle of being bound by Conference, he also put a positive case for a limited suffrage based on a property qualification. Not surprisingly, he was forcefully opposed by women delegates as well as men: Mabel Hope of the Postal Telegraphs Clerks’ Association, who was

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