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The Resolution of Internal Conflicts and External Pressures The Labour Party's Devolution Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

J. Barry Jones  and
Michael Keating
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Extract

THE QUESTION OF DECENTRALIZATION IS ONE WHICH THE British Labour Party has always found difficult to handle because of its inheritance of contradictory traditions in relation to the British state. Labour's roots in anti-authoritarian radicalism and in the British periphery make it sympathetic to decentralist demands and this has been reinforced by the need to compete electorally for support in the periphery. However, to gain power at Westminster it needs more than peripheral support; it needs to capture power at the centre and, in order to benefit the periphery, to strengthen the power of the centre. Ideologically, the party also possesses a socialist tradition which preaches the indivisibility of working-class interests and deplores nationalism and separatism.

Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1982 , pp. 279 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1982

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References

1 See for example, Jones, J. B. and Keating, M., ‘The British Labour Party as a Centralising Force’, Studies in Public Policy, No. 32, University of Strathclyde, 1979 Google Scholar and Keating, M. and Bleiman, D., Labour and Scottish Nationalism, London, Macmillan, 1979 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Robertson, D., A Theory of Party Competition, London, Wiley, 1976 Google Scholar.

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5 Hansard, 103, 13 January 1976, c. 291–2.

6 D. Francis, ‘Wales against the Tories’, Miner, February‐March 1979.

7 The Scottish TUC had been established in 1897 but declined after the amalgamation of most of the individual Scottish unions and only developed a significant role during the 1960s. The Wales TUC, founded in 1973, rapidly sought, with some success, to acquire the status and influence of its Scottish counterpart.

8 Donnett, A., ‘Our Changing Democracy’, A Statement of Welcome from Alex Donnett, Glasgow, General and Municipal Workers Union, 1976 Google Scholar.

9 Hansard, 689, 10 February 1964, c. 144.

10 Hansard, 827, 6 December 1971, c. 987.

11 Speech at Newcastle, 2 October 1973.

12 Hansard, 958, 12 March 1974, c. 83.

13 Report of the 1978 Annual Conference, Cardiff, Labour Party Wales, 1978.

14 J. Bulpitt, ‘Conservatism, Unionism and the Problem of Territorial Management’, paper given to Political Studies Association Work Group on United Kingdom Politics, University of Warwick, 1978.

15 Crewe, I. et al., ‘Partisan Dealignment in British Politics, 1964–74’, British Journal of Political Science, 7, 1977 Google Scholar.

16 Williams, S., Politics is for People, London, Allen Lane, 1981. CrossRefGoogle Scholar