Government and Intra-Party Opposition: Dissent within the Conservative Parliamentary Party in the 1930s

DURING most of the last half century the Opposition political parties in Britain have managed to control a sizable share of the seats in the House of Commons. Some would argue that such a situation is essential if the accountability of the Government is to be maintained. The questions and dissents of a small Opposition can be brushed aside with relative ease as long as it continues to observe parliamentary niceties. While the size and the effectiveness of the Opposition by no mean correlate perfectly, the first clearly is likely to have a significant impact upon the second. During the decade of the 1930s, however, the Opposition in the Commons was numerically its weakest of any time in the last half century. Following the 1931 General Election the Opposition held only 10 per cent. of the seats in the House of Commons, exactly the situation which raised some cries of alarm about the health of democracy in West Germany in the late 1960s. Within a year the figure rose to 15 per cent. when the Liberals went into Opposition. The 1935 General Election improved matters further as Opposition groups expanded their share of seats to 30 per cent. Even that figure, however, is lower than the ones prevailing during any other decade in the last half century.2 During the 1930s, then, the Opposition in the Commons not only was at its lowest ebb numerically in recent years, but remained weak constantly for almost ten years. That this period was one of growing international crises which eventually culminated in world war adds to the significanceof Britain’s unusual domestic political situation then. With the effectiveness of the Opposition hampered by its weakness, there was both the opportunity and the necessity for dissidents among the Government’s supporters to call it to account. Were the Government to be challenged effectively to defend and justify its policies it would have to be from this quarter. This study focuses on Government and Opposition in a parliamentary system, but on a special type of Opposition. It examines opposition coming from the Government’s nominal supporters during a period in which the preponderance of Government strength in the parliament threatens to make the formal Opposition inconsequential. It seeks to discover the extent to which and the methods by which