Popular Front (UK)

The Popular Front in the United Kingdom attempted an alliance between political parties and individuals of the left and centre-left in the late 1930s to come together to challenge the Nazi/fascist appeasement policies of the National Government led by Neville Chamberlain. The Popular Front (PF) despite not having the formal endorsement of either the Labour Party or the Liberal Party, fielded candidates at parliamentary by-elections with success. There was no general election to test the support of the PF and therefore the opportunity for it to form a government.

Origins of the Popular Front

The Popular Front was launched by the Liberal MP Richard Acland, the Communist and former MP John Strachey, Labour's economist G. D. H. Cole and Conservative MP Robert Boothby in December 1936.

Richard Acland

Richard Acland was a relatively new Liberal MP who had gained Barnstaple from the Conservatives at the 1935 election. He quickly became an influential figure on the left of the Liberal Party. He advocated closer ties with the Labour Party and electoral co-operation with them at constituency level. He also became an outspoken supporter of a Popular Front, becoming one of its founders.

John Strachey

He was elected as Labour Member of Parliament for Birmingham Aston in 1929, serving to 1931. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Oswald Mosley. He resigned from the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1931 for Mosley's New Party. Following the New Party's drift towards fascism he resigned to become a supporter of the Communist Party, contesting the Aston constituency as an independent. He assisted the publisher Victor Gollancz in founding the Left Book Club in 1936. As the author of The Coming Struggle for Power (1932), and a series of other significant works, Strachey was one of the most prolific and widely read British Marxist-Leninist theorists of the 1930s.

G. D. H. Cole

Cole was an Oxford academic, writer and political theorist who favoured Libertarian socialism. He was a notable figure in the Labour Party. In 1936 Cole began calling for a Popular Front movement in Britain, where the Labour Party would ally with other parties against the threat of fascism.

Robert Boothby

Boothby had been Tory MP for Aberdeen and Kincardine East since 1924. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill from 1926 to 1929.

United Front

The PF campaign was preceded by the United Front campaign. The campaign for a United Front, sought to get co-operation between the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain. A major part of that unity campaign was to have electoral co-operation against the National Government at a future general election. In 1931 the ILP had disaffiliated from the Labour Party and at the 1935 General Election the ILP and the Labour Party had fielded candidates against each other that had resulted in cases of the National Government candidate winning due to a split left vote. Within the Labour Party, one of the leading figures in support of the United Front was Sir Stafford Cripps. By 1937 the Labour Party showed little indication for resolving this issue and those within it ranks such as Cripps faced expulsion as a result.

Sir Stafford Cripps

He was Labour MP for Bristol East and Solicitor General in the last Labour government of 1931. He had not given up on trying to unite the left and saw that supporting the Popular Front would achieve the same aims. In putting the case for a Popular Front, he argued that the Labour Party acting alone would not be able to defeat the National Government.

Popular Front by-elections

At the Combined English Universities by-election, 1937 former Liberal MP Thomas Edmund Harvey gained the seat from the Conservatives standing as an Independent Progressive, seeking to rally anti-government supporters on the left. The success of this campaign caused many left leaning academics to consider if candidates standing under a similar platform could be as successful in non-University seats. Throughout the parliament, the National Government would frequently find themselves only opposed by one opposition candidate, either Labour or Liberal. Some of these candidates sought to campaign on the Popular Front platform, with varying degrees of support from other parties. There were few specific cases of an anti-government candidate standing on a Popular Front platform as opposed to a party platform. In such cases these candidates ran as Independent Progressive.

Oxford

The Oxford by-election, 1938 was held on 27 October 1938. The Liberal Party had selected Ivor Davies, a 23-year-old graduate of Edinburgh University, despite the fact that he was the candidate for Central Aberdeenshire at the same time. The Labour Party selected Patrick Gordon Walker, who had contested the seat at the 1935 general election. On 13 September, Davies offered to stand down from the by-election if Labour did the same and backed a Popular Front candidate against the Conservatives. Eventually, Gordon Walker reluctantly stood down and both parties supported Sandy Lindsay, who was the Master of Balliol, as an Independent Progressive. The Conservatives held the seat with a reduced majority of 3,434 or 12.2%.

Oxford by-election, 1938

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Quintin Hogg	15,797	56.1	-6.7
	Independent Progressive	Sandy Lindsay	12,363	43.9	N/A
Majority			3,434	12.2	-13.4
Turnout			28,160	76.3	+9.0
	Conservative hold		Swing	-6.7

Bridgwater

Vernon Bartlett

The Bridgwater by-election, 1938 was held on 17 November 1938. Vernon Bartlett was a journalist and broadcaster with extensive experience of foreign affairs. He was approached by Richard Acland, Liberal MP for Barnstaple, a seat bordering Bridgwater, about standing as an anti-appeasement candidate in the by-election. Bartlett agreed to do so providing he had the support of the Liberal and Labour parties. The Bridgwater Liberal Party unanimously backed Bartlett's candidature. Before the by-election vacancy was known, the local Labour Party had already re-adopted Arthur Loveys their previous candidate, to contest a General Election expected to occur in 1939. Loveys withdrew and Labour generally supported Bartlett, although many in the Labour Party were unenthusiastic about co-operation with the Liberals. Some Labour voters were reluctant to support Bartlett, believing he was really a Liberal candidate. However, he did receive a letter of support from 39 Labour MPs just before polling day. Bartlett won the seat with a majority of 2,332 or 6.3%. He hailed the result as a defeat for Chamberlain, saying that it showed people understood the dangers of the Government's foreign policy.

Bridgwater by-election, 17th November 1938 Electorate 44,653

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Independent Progressive	Vernon Bartlett	19,540	53.2	n/a
	Conservative	Patrick Heathcoat-Amory	17,208	46.8	-10.1
Majority			2,332	6.3	39.8
Turnout			36,748	82.3	+9.6
	Independent Progressive gain from Conservative		Swing	n/a

Westminster Abbey

The Westminster Abbey by-election, 1939 was held on 17 May 1939. The Labour candidate in 1935, William Kennedy, had been re-selected to contest the next General Election, however, the Labour party decided not to contest the by-election. The Communist party, who had not contested the seat before, chose Dr. Billy Carritt, to stand. In an attempt to revive the Popular Front strategy, Carritt stood as an Independent Progressive. Carritt attracted the highest ever percentage poll of any anti-Conservative candidate in this seat. The performance revived interest nationally in electoral co-operation to defeat National Government candidates at a General Election.

Westminster Abbey by-election, 1939

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	William Harold Webbe	9,678	67.4	-10.1
	Independent Progressive	Dr G. Billy Carritt	4,674	32.6	N/A
Majority			5,004	34.8	-20.2
Turnout			47,396	30.3	-18.9
	Conservative hold		Swing	N/A

Lib/Lab electoral co-operation 1939

Despite the defeat of the Popular Fronters at the Labour Conference, co-operation between constituency Labour and Liberal organisation continued to grow through the year. It was widely anticipated that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain would call a general election in 1939 and all political parties were going through the process of selecting local candidates.

Aftermath

Calls for a Popular Front ceased when Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. However, it was becoming increasingly recognised that during wartime, it was better to have a broad based government that could command all-party support. By May 1940 Winston Churchill had become Prime Minister and had included in his new government other Conservative anti-appeasers and the leaders of the Labour and Liberal parties. The Communist party's support for co-operation fluctuated depending on the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. John Strachey left the party and re-joined the Labour Party. The ILP was to take an semi-anti-war position. In 1940 Cripps was appointed by Winston Churchill as Ambassador to the Soviet Union. In 1942 Acland broke from the Liberals to found the socialist Common Wealth Party with J. B. Priestley, opposing the war-time electoral truce between the major parties. At the 1945 General election, there were a handful of instances of Labour not running candidates in Con/Lib constituencies, but essentially there was no electoral co-operation between Labour, Liberal and Communist or even in Bridgwater where Labour decident to oppose Vernon Bartlett standing for re-election as a Progressive.