In Defence of Steel: The Expulsion of Alfred Edwards MP and His Campaign against Steel Nationalization, 1948–1951

Abstract

Alfred Edwards, MP for Middlesbrough East from 1935 to 1950, has been subject to only cursory academic attention during the lifetime of the 1945–51 Labour governments. Consequently, this article provides the first detailed study of Edwards’s parliamentary career. It is argued that Edwards was a significant national figure due to both his expulsion from the Labour Party in 1948 and the campaign he subsequently waged against Labour’s policy of steel nationalization in 1949. This article further argues that steel nationalization was the most controversial measure enacted from Labour’s 1945 manifesto, as it was neither a failing industry nor a public utility. As such, steel nationalization sparked huge internal debates about Labour’s future direction and, in Parliament, provoked the largest anti-government vote of Clement Attlee’s 1945–50 administration. In these years, Edwards played a substantial role in harnessing forces against steel nationalization, culminating in his campaign of 1949. Through an investigation of Edwards’s parliamentary conduct, expulsion from the Labour Party, and Steel Defence Campaign, this article concludes that, even if speaking on only one issue and for a short period of time, Edwards was a headline-generating figure whose absence from the historiography of these years is worthy of reassessment.