Labour and Sterling

Abstract

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.