Labour and Sterling

In December 1955, Hugh Gaitskell became the leader of the Labour Party. Some ten months later, Britain, France and Israel launched a military attack on Egypt. With a sterling crisis ensuing from this venture, Suez highlighted the limits to Britain’s military and economic power. It was the twilight of British imperialism.1 Admittedly, British imperialism had set the stage for British socialism: ‘In the days when the socialist movement was growing to maturity, British Imperialism was at its zenith.’2 The Labour Party had established itself as the vanguard of anti-imperialism. Nevertheless, Suez provided Labourites with something of a sense of collapse. The radical wing of the British socialists abhorred imperialism or colonialism, since it was highly suggestive of the ‘power of man over man’.3 British colonies, however, undoubtedly provided workers with useful outlets for employment and supported wages in Britain: ‘Directly and indirectly the British worker was materially involved in, and profiting from, imperialism.’4 ‘This country’s trade, her communications, her military strategy, her very economic structure had all been shaped around her imperial reality.’5 ‘Imperialism, with all its defects, was a form of world order.’6 Labourites were likewise captives of this reality.