Labour and the politics of Empire: Britain and Australia 1900 to the present

337 Pages·2011·18.372 MB·English

by  Neville Kirk

STUDIES IN IMPERIALISM STUDIES IN IMPERIALISM
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General Editor: John M. MacKenzie a
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u Labour and the
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This is a path-breaking comparative and trans-national study
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of the neglected infl uences of nation, empire and race upon n
politics of Empire
the development and electoral fortunes of the Labour Party in d
Britain and the Australian Labor Party from their formative years
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of the 1900s to the elections of 2010. h
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Based upon extensive primary and secondary-based research Britain and Australia
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in Britain and Australia over several years, it makes a new
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and original contribution to the fi elds of labour, imperial and 1900 to the present
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‘British world’ history. It engages with traditional explanations of i
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Labour politics based largely upon class and more recent ones i
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upon gender, political institutions and political languages. It s
incorporates the factors of class and Labour into imperial and
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‘British world’ history in new and signifi cant ways. It offers the f
NEVILLE KIRK
challenging conclusion that the forces of nation, empire and race E
exerted much greater infl uence upon Labour politics in both m
countries than suggested by ‘traditionalists’ and ‘revisionists’
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alike. At the same time, however, it is alive to and explains
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political differences as well as similarities. r
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The author is a leading British Labour historian who has written
extensively upon the national, comparative and trans-national
labour histories of Britain, Australia and the USA and who has
contributed to the theoretical development of the subject area.
The book will appeal to undergraduates, postgraduates, scholars
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in history and politics and all those interested in and concerned
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with the past, present and future of Labour politics in Britain,
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Australia and more generally.
Neville Kirk is Emeritus Professor of Labour and Social History at
Manchester Metropolitan University
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
general editor John M. MacKenzie
When the ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series was founded more
than twenty-five years ago, emphasis was laid upon the
conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenomenon
had as significant an effect on the dominant as on the
subordinate societies’. With more than eighty books
published, this remains the prime concern of the series.
Cross-disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the
full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining
aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, science and
the environment, language and literature, migration and
patriotic societies, and much else. Moreover, the series has
always wished to present comparative work on European
and American imperialism, and particularly welcomes the
submission of books in these areas. The fascination with
imperialism, in all its aspects, shows no sign of abating,
and this series will continue to lead the way in encouraging
the widest possible range of studies in the field. ‘Studies
in Imperialism’ is fully organic in its development, always
seeking to be at the cutting edge, responding to the latest
interests of scholars and the needs of this ever-expanding
area of scholarship.
Labour and the politics of Empire
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SELECTED TITLES AVAILABLE IN THE SERIES
EUROPEAN EMPIRES AND THE PEOPLE
Popular responses to imperialism in France, Britain, the Netherlands,
Belgium, Germany and Italy
Edited by John MacKenzie
SCOTTISHNESS AND IRISHNESS IN NEW ZEALAND SINCE 1840
Angela McCarthy
GENDER, CRIME AND EMPIRE
Convicts, settlers and the state in early colonial Australia
Kirsty Reid
OCEANIA UNDER STEAM
Sea transport and the cultures of colonialism, c. 1870–1914
Frances Steel
CHILD, NATION, RACE AND EMPIRE
Child rescue discourse, England, Canada and Australia, 1850–1915
Shurlee Swain and Margot Hillel
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Labour and the
politics of Empire
BRITAIN AND AUSTRALIA 1900
TO THE PRESENT
Neville Kirk
MANCHESTER
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Manchester and New York
distributed in the United States exclusively by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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Copyright © Neville Kirk 2011
The right of Neville Kirk to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published by Manchester University Press
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK
and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
Distributed exclusively in the USA by
Palgrave, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010, USA
Distributed exclusively in Canada by
UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 978 0 7190 8079 1 hardback
ISBN 978 0 7190 9131 5 paperback
First published by Manchester University Press 2011
First digital paperback edition published 2014
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or
third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content
on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
I would like to dedicate this book to Kate, Bob and Ella Kirk
and the memory of Charlie Brown. They will be glad to know
that it is no longer ‘almost finished’.
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CONTENTS
List of figures — page ix
General Editor’s introduction — page x
Acknowledgements — page xii
List of abbreviations — page xiv
Part I Setting the scene 1
1 Subject matter, debates and issues 3
2 Labour and elections 31
Part II The growth of independent Labour 45
Introduction 47
3 Chronology, constituencies, impact 48
4 Explanations and characteristics 67
Part III The politics of loyalism 89
Introduction 91
5 Anti-socialism and the tarring of Labour 96
6 Labour responses and political outcomes 134
Part IV Mixed fortunes: from the 1940s World War
to the 1970s class war 147
Introduction 149
7 Labour successes: the 1940s 160
8 Out in the cold 177
9 Trans-national ties, electoral successes and
bitter defeats 211
[ vii ]
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CONTENTS
Part V Traditionalism, modernisation and revisionism 235
10 Successes and failures 237
11 From Hawke and Keating to the rise of New Labour,
1983–97 246
12 From Howard to Gillard, from Blair to Brown, 1997–2010 276
Conclusion 299
Index — 306
[ viii ]
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LIST OF FIGURES
1 Keir Hardie in the company of fellow British socialists
Tom Mann, H.H. Champion and Ben Tillett, and the
Victorian labour activist J.P. Jones, in Melbourne, 1908.
Courtesy People’s History Museum, Manchester, UK page 15
2 Arthur Henderson and other Labour MPs in the Empire
Parliamentary Association Delegation to Australia, 1926,
reproduced from Labour Magazine, February 1927 16
3 Andrew Fisher and Keir Hardie December 1907. Courtesy
National Library of Australia 18
4 Arthur Calwell, Australia’s Minister for Immigration,
welcoming British Migrants, ca. 1945–49. Courtesy National
Library of Australia 213
[ ix ]
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