A Campaign For Unity: Cripps' Unity Campaign, 1935-1939, Part I

When the Labour Party comes to power [again] we must act rapidly and it will be necessary to deal with the House of Lords and the influence of the City of London. [2] There is no doubt that we shall have to overcome opposition from Buckingham Palace and other places as well. [3]

This speech was resoundingly criticized by both Labourites and others, and Cripps was forced to recant some of what he had said. [4] Nevertheless, the speech demonstrated his deep, almost paranoid, distrust of capitalists and the National Government during the 1930s. This distrust carried over to foreign policy and mostly explains why he opposed rearmament throughout.

This fervent distrust was further confirmed by the National Government's actions during the 1930s. On the domestic front, the Government arrested several Communist and left-wing activists but did not crack down as much on right-wingers as Oswald Mosely's fascists. Abroad, it appeared to favor the Fascist states of Germany and Italy over the Soviet Union. It also tolerated brazen aggression, as shown through a remark made by Stanley Baldwin [Conservative Prime Minister, 1923, 24-29, 35-37] in 1936:

We English hate fascism but we loathe bolshevism as much. So if there is somewhere where the fascies and the bolshies can kill each other, so much the better. [5]

Substitute Spain into "somewhere" and it is easy to understand why many Labourites deeply distrusted the National Government.

Footnotes:

[1] v. 319, House of Commons Debates, 19 January 1937, col. 176.

[2] The financial and banking interests. The British equivalent of "the influence of Wall Street."

[3] Colin Cooke, The Life of Richard Stafford Cripps, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1957), p. 159, quoting The Morning Post, January 8, 1934.

[4] Ibid., p. 160.

[5] Stephen J. Lee, Aspects of British Political History, 1914-95, (New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 150, quoting R.A.C. Parker in W.J. Mommsen and L. Kettenacker (eds.), The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement, (London: 1983), p. 38.

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