At the present time we have a Labour Party leadership which
appears unenthusiastic, and that’s putting it mildly, about Britain’s
membership of NATO and the retention of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, on March
7 an article in The Telegraph by
Steven Swinford informs us that “Britain’s
equality watchdog has announced a formal inquiry into the Labour Party’s
handling of anti-Semitism cases amid claims that the party broke equalities
law.” *
In such circumstances we should remember
the contribution made by Ernest Bevin, a patriotic anti-communist who was a
giant figure in the Trade Union Movement, Labour Party and British Government both
in time of war and peace. Today is the
anniversary of his birth in the village of Winsford which sits within the
borders of Exmoor National Park 10 miles southwest of Minehead in Somerset.
Ernest
Bevin was born at Winsford on 9th March 1881. His mother, Diana, was married to William
Bevin, an agricultural worker who, by 1877, had deserted his family. Therefore Ernest Bevin’s father is not
known. He was one of 7 children.
After his
mother’s death he lived with his sister and her husband. Bevin left school in 1892 and worked on farms
until 1894 when he moved to Bristol
to join his brothers, Jack and Albert.
In Bristol he worked mainly
as a conductor on trams and as a van driver until becoming a paid official of
the Dockers Union in 1911. While in Bristol he attended
chapel, becoming a Sunday School teacher and Baptist preacher.
By May
1920 he was Assistant General Secretary of the Dockers Union and as his trade
union role was centred on London
he moved there with his wife, Florence Anne Townley.
Bevin
played the major role in creating the Transport and General Workers Union from
the merger of 14 unions with his own Dockers Union as its core. The new union came into being on 1 January
1922, with 300,000 members. Bevin was
elected General Secretary and by the late 1930s he was leading the largest
union in the country, with 650,000 members.
He took a
determined stand against communist challenges to trade union leadership and was
suspicious of the egotism of intellectual socialists.
In May
1940 Bevin was top of the list of Labour figures who Churchill wanted in his
War Cabinet and he agreed to become Minister of Labour and National Service in
Churchill’s coalition government. He
became an MP for the first time in June 1940 being elected unopposed for Central Wandsworth.
Bevin was a staunch supporter of the war effort and believed “it is a
social obligation to defend your own homestead”.
He so
successfully mobilized and directed labour into essential war industries that Britain
achieved a higher level of civilian mobilization than any other of the nations
at war. Bevin oversaw a great extension
of collective bargaining, wage regulation, trade union membership and general
transformation of working conditions.
Possibly
second only to Churchill in the wartime government, Churchill himself looked
upon Bevin as a possible successor should anything happen to himself.
After the
war Bevin became Foreign Secretary in the Labour government and formed a close
association with Prime Minister Attlee which contemporaries said was one of the
most successful political partnerships in English history. He had a deep distrust of communism and the Soviet Union, was firmly committed to the British nuclear
deterrent, and played a key role in the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation.
Failing
health caused him to be replaced as Foreign Secretary in March 1951 and he died
at his home in Westminster
on 14 April 1951.
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