Labour Split

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 953, 22 April 1930, Page 9

Labour Split

INDEPENDENT PARTY ADRIFT

Freedom to Criticise

STORMY SCENE AT EASTER MEETING

THE Independent Labour Party in Great Britain has reached the parting of the ways with the Parliamentary Labour Party, and, amid the stormiest scenes yet witnessed at a conference, has declared its retention of the right of free criticism, even to the extent of voting against the Government.

The Labour daily newspaper deplores the disintegration of the working-class interests.

United P.A.—By Telegraph Copyright Reed. 12.35 p.m. LONDON, Monday. At the annual conference of the Independent Labour Party at Birmingham a resolution was carried that the party must preserve its separate existence as a Parliamentary group, even to the extent of voting against the Government. The conference was the stormiest yet, one section shouting against another. One of the rowdiest scenes occurred when the divided elements discussed the suggestion that the party should stand alone in its Parliament purpose of advancing Socialism. The opponents of this were asked how it was imagined that a “small group of divinely chosens in the House of Commons, led by Mr. Maxton, was going completely to change

society without the help of the Labour Parliamentary Party.” Delegates stamped and shouted and speakers only proceeded with difficulty. The “Daily Herald” editorially declares fhe policies that continue separate may need separate parties. The paper hoped not, for there was something tragic in the prospect of a disintegration of the working class movement, whose unity thus far was an example to Europe.

“The Independent Labour Party is at the parting of the ways,” it says, “but refuses to see that the ways do part.” Incidentally the conference endorsed the action of Mr. J. Maxton, Labour M.P. for Bridgeton, Glasgow, in connection with unemployment insurance, because it considered that the Bill did not sufficiently increase the benefits.