MAXTON AND RED CLYDESIDE: Scots in UK Politics (10)

The City of Glasgow has a very distinctive character. For all the 19^th and much of the 20^th centuries, she has been an industrial power house, with a population in excess of 1m, hosting notably engineering, textile and shipbuilding industries with coal-mining too in the surrounding area. We can now enjoy her elegant Georgian and Victorian terraces and her fine townscape along the River Clyde. But that is the result of relatively recent renewal – traditional Glasgow was a place of smoke, pollution, poor housing, hardship and poverty. The Second City of the Empire spawned radical politicians especially in the 1910-35 period. The City was nicknamed Red Clydeside, striking terror and alarm into the heart of bourgeois Britain. Her most charismatic leader was schoolteacher James Maxton (1885-1946), with his hatchet face and flowing locks, whose oratory thrilled the Glasgow working class and impressed even Winston Churchill and others in the Commons at Westminster.

James Maxton, spellbinder

Red Clydeside was the product of several currents. The Labour movement, intellectuals, trades unionists and activists, with many Glaswegian adherents, was trying to establish an identity distinct from the Marxist Continentals. Macdonald was a gradualist like the Fabians, but others wanted to encourage a more revolutionary programme. Macdonald’s views prevailed and 29 Labour Party members entered Parliament in 1906 willing to work alongside the Liberals. The Independent Labour Party (ILP) had been formed earlier and was affiliated to, but not controlled by, the new Labour Party. It was more left-wing than the national party. Locally in Glasgow the key problems were appalling working conditions and inferior housing but any party had to be able to accommodate not only Scots Presbyterians or atheists but also a significant Catholic minority originally from Ireland, which was politically radical but socially conservative.

The scene was set in 1911 with a major strike at the large Singer sewing machine factory, when 11,000 workers walked out in protest at a time and motion study changing working practices and requiring more productivity for no more wages. The strike ultimately failed and 400 militant workers were sacked by the employer, the usual consequence in those days. Between 1910 and 1914 the number of days lost through strikes in embittered Glasgow quadrupled. 

With the outbreak of the First War the Labour Party was split but Macdonald and Maxton were conscientious objectors. Maxton organised a shipyard strike and was imprisoned for 6 months for sedition. With most of the men joining up to the Army, the Glasgow landlords pushed up rents believing the wives would be an easier touch. A rent strike was organised, mainly by Mary Barbour, evictions were obstructed by large crowds and the government had hurriedly to introduce a rent freeze in Glasgow and most other British cities.

With the end of the War, Glasgow activists agitated for a 40-Hour Week. This was a device to share out whatever work was available, as it was realised that with demobilisation and the drastic reduction in the munitions and shipbuilding industries there would be wide-spread unemployment. A mass demonstration was called for George Square, Glasgow in January 1919 and some 60,000 people assembled. The police were heavy handed and disorder broke out. The union leaders, Manny Shinwell, David Kirkwood and Willie Gallacher were arrested. The crowd could not be controlled and the Sherriff was unable to read the Riot Act, as was then required: it was torn from his hands. The police continued to be defied but eventually the crowd dispersed. Fearing revolution (the Bolsheviks were taking over in Russia and Europe was ablaze) the government panicked and sent in troops and tanks to lock down the city and deter further agitation. The local army units, notably the Highland Light Infantry at Maryhill, were confined to barracks for fear they would join the workers. In truth, there was little revolutionary spirit evident and the government had over-reacted.

Manny Shinwell (1884-1986) was a leading Red Clydesider. Born in Spitalfields, London to a Polish Jewish father, a tailor, and a Dutch Jewish mother, the family moved to Glasgow when he was a child. He educated himself at public libraries, never losing his broad Glasgow accent, and became a trades union organiser for the seamen, leading a strike in 1911. Fond of boxing, he was a political bruiser, imprisoned for 6 months for his part in the 40-Hour Movement and the George Square riot. He was an MP 1922-24, 1929-31 and 1936 – 1970, when he became a life peer. He famously crossed the floor of the Commons to punch a Tory member who had in 1938 told him to “Go back to Poland”.

Manny Shinwell

Willie Gallacher

Shinwell was a relentless critic of Macdonald’s moderation (he unseated Macdonald at Seaham in the 1935 election) and a dedicated class warrior. On becoming Minister of Fuel and Power in 1945, he presided over the nationalisation of the coal industry and in an act of rancour opened a mine at Wentworth Woodhouse at the back door of Lord Fitzwilliam’s stately home, despite mine-owner Fitzwilliam being notably philanthropic to the local miners for many years. He was much criticised for his handling of coal shortages and black-outs in the severe 1947 winter. He was moved to Defence, where he did better, though his MI6 file suspected him of leaking information to Irgun, a Jewish organisation fighting Britain in Palestine. Shinwell was honoured in his old age – he died aged 101 – but he was a nasty bit of work in his prime. 

Willie Gallacher (1881 – 1965) was another militant Red Clydesider. Jailed with Shinwell after the George Square riot, he was jailed again for 12 months in 1925 for inciting troops to mutiny. Gallacher was more overtly revolutionary, moving to the Communist Party and being one of only 3 communist MPs ever, representing West Fife from 1935-50. He was unsurprisingly an avid supporter of intervention and of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.

In Macdonald’s first ministry 1923-4 Clydesider John Wheatley was appointed Minister for Health and he piloted through an important Housing Act, much increasing the availability of council housing, a vital issue in Glasgow. Wheatley was a Catholic miner turned printer and was considered the brains behind the ILP. Maxton, the ILP leader, and Wheatley became increasingly critical of Macdonald and his policies of austerity in the Depression; he was not offered a job in Macdonald’s 1929-31 ministry. Wheatley died in 1930 and he had actually achieved something with his Housing Act. Working through Parliament, not street politics, was the way forward.

John Wheatley

In 1931, Labour was devastated by the defection of Macdonald in the economic crisis to a National government dominated by the Tories. Their numbers were much reduced in the subsequent election. The ILP, still strong in Clydeside, disaffiliated from Labour in 1932, but its membership plummeted. Macdonald continued as National Prime Minister, his powers failing. As he meandered incoherently through his last Commons speech, Maxton called out “Sit down, man, you’re a bloody tragedy!”

Maxton continued in the 1930s to espouse socialist causes. He published a biography of Lenin and with fellow-traveller Fenner Brockway supported various Communist Front organisations. In truth Red Clydeside had run out of steam and when Maxton died in 1946, Red Clydeside and the ILP died with him. He was never more than a marginal figure and it is surprising Gordon Brown later made him his hero.

Jimmy Reid

   

Jim Sillars

              

Alex Neil

The contrarian spirit of Glasgow politicians lived on with the likes of Jimmy Reid (1932 – 2010), charismatic communist leader of the 1972 Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in and later SNP supporter. Jim Sillars, erstwhile Labour hero and then SNP enthusiast, until he fell out with Alex Salmond, is another. Alex Neil is similar, moving from Labour to the SNP and the Scottish Assembly cabinet. There is a whiff of Red Clydeside about all three.

As I am a Scottish middle-class Tory, I am not really on the same wavelength as Red Clydeside. Yet I do not doubt their sincerity nor their talent. However, W B Yeats' lines inevitably come to mind;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

SMD

6.10.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013