‘vain, ambitious and out of touch with the grass-roots of the party’
Ramsay Macdonald can only truly be judged as a traitor if he knew before the National Government was formed that he would be heading it. We can look at the facts to determine the truth. Macdonald would have known his name would be mud, and in a job like an MP where reputation is everything, crossing the floor so dramatically would surely have been a last resort to gain power. But was it his only resort? Historian David Marquand feels Macdonald didn’t know he would remain Prime Minister at the time he resigned Labour from power, but was: ‘persuaded to stay on as Prime Minister of an all-party government as the best way of avoiding an election and restoring confidence.’
The current period in office for Labour had been a struggle. The previous two years had been marred by crisis after crisis, with Labour inheriting many problems not dealt with by Baldwin’s Tories. The most pressing issue would be the alarming rise in unemployment that was showing no signs of slowing down. To address this problem, Macdonald turned to J. H. Thomas and a small committee including Oswald Mosley. Macdonald promptly sacked an incapable Thomas. The Mosley Memorandum put forward included reducing imports, subsiding agriculture, introducing pensions at 60 and raising the school leaving age to 15. This was dismissed for being ‘too expensive’. Mosley was replaced by Sir George May, whose May Report was forced through by Macdonald, eventually winning 11/9.
Given these circumstances (his apart lack of support – only winning 11/9), it was quite likely that Macdonald would resign from power, yet his final reason looks more like an excuse than a justification. Macdonald took the 11/9 vote as a sign that he had hardly any support and no majority, and resigned, yet more than 50% of the votes were in his favour.
The fact that Macdonald formed the National Government, or was persuaded to, shows that he still believed he was able to solve the problems, especially unemployment. He felt he could relate to many people’s problems due to his middle class upbringing and socialist background, and so leaving the Labour Party for personal reasons does not seem such a strange idea.
The argument that Macdonald was motivated by personal ambition has further weight added to it when it is claimed he resigned Labour to save not only the parties’ reputation, but his own. This is almost certainly true, as he didn’t want to suffer embarrassment on purpose, yet it is probably not true that he wanted to save is reputation for running the coalition.
We will never know the truth, as Ramsay Macdonald carried it to the grave, yet we can surmise that his decision to resign Labour from power was motivated by 75% wanting to do the best for Labour, and 25% personal ambition.