I beg the party not to follow this recipe for disappointment and decline but to face problems realistically and to lift its eyes beyond the narrow, short-term political considerations of the moment.43
‘It was a powerful speech,’ Tony Benn conceded, ‘and the arguments carried a great deal of weight.’ But it was also ‘an arrogant and an elitist speech’, which was immediately seen as ‘a direct attack on Harold Wilson and also on Healey and Crosland, who had climbed off the fence against the Market’.44 Among the Jenkinsites it aroused enormous enthusiasm, with great banging of desks ‘in which quite clearly many of the floating voters of the party joined’.45 But its defiant tone and personal gibes also gave huge offence. If Jenkins had intended only to defend his own position, he soon realised that he had gone too far, allowing the anti-Europeans to portray him as the splitter. ‘It could have developed into a standing ovation at the drop of a hat,’ wrote Barbara Castle, who had spoken earlier and was furious that she had been persuaded to keep her speech low-key. ‘I realised then why he had insisted on speaking last and why the room was so packed’; it was ‘as clearly organised a demo as I have ever seen, and an anti-Wilson demo at that’. In the dining room afterwards, when Jenkins stopped at her table, she told him ‘savagely’ that she had always liked and trusted him, but never again. ‘Roy was obviously shaken, bridled nervously and moved away.’ (Jenkins himself recalled this encounter in very similar terms.) Wilson too, she recorded, ‘was obviously shaken by the night’s events . . . As we walked together to the division lobby, he agreed that this was war. “Perhaps you will now listen to some of us,” I pleaded with him. “They’ve always been out to get you and they think this is their chance.” He said grimly that he had some hard thinking to do.’46
The next day Tony Benn found Wilson still ‘extremely agitated about Roy Jenkins’ great speech’ and determined to slap him down: ‘I don’t know why I go on. But I’ll smash CDS before I go.’47 The old Bevanite–Gaitskellite divide – almost healed between 1964 and 1970 – was reopened with a vengeance. The next day Wilson charged the Jenkinsites with operating ‘a party within a party’ (exactly the charge that Attlee had levelled at the Bevanites in 1952) – ‘no less so because it meets outside the House in more socially agreeable surroundings’48 – and wondered sarcastically how people like Bill Rodgers and Roy Hattersley could sully their purity by accepting Shadow spokesmanships. Rodgers immediately sought a meeting with Wilson to ask whether pro-Europeans were now ineligible to sit on the front bench. Wilson assured him this was not so, and a fragile front of tolerance was restored. At the Shadow Cabinet on 21 July Michael Foot told Jenkins that he should make it clear in his speech in the European debate the next day that he was not challenging the leader. ‘Roy looked affronted at this and said haughtily that he would make his own speech in his own way and so we left it.’ Barbara Castle thought this ‘a healthy bloodletting’, but reckoned characteristically that ‘we came off best’.49 In the House the next day, while repeating his commitment to Europe, Jenkins did pay qualified tribute to Wilson’s leadership; and when he sat down he received ‘a pat on the back which looked almost complimentary’.50
The summer recess brought a month’s respite. After a week together in Lebanon, Roy and Jennifer holidayed separately – she in Greece, he in Italy, where he stayed in turn with a succession of British friends in agreeable villas: two days with Bill and Sylvia Rodgers (plus the Hattersleys) on Lake Bracciano; a week with Mark and Leslie Bonham Carter at Policastro in the far south; four days with Ronald and Marietta Tree in Florence and two with Isaiah and Aline Berlin near Portofino; with a busy round of other house guests, lunches and dinners in each place, leavened by sightseeing, tennis and bathing. For once he does not seem to have done much writing. The looming vote on the government’s application to join the EEC, to be taken at the end of October, can never have been far from his mind.
At the beginning of October the party conference – that year in Brighton – carried overwhelmingly the NEC’s motion to reject the Tory terms.fn8 But at a pro-European fringe meeting Jenkins made clear that he and others would refuse to toe the line. Less provocatively than in July, he claimed ‘no monopoly of rightness or sincerity’:
I do claim that we are entitled to stick to the beliefs which we have long held. I do not apologise for doing so. I reject utterly the view that . . . we are supporting the Tories. My aim is to increase the future opportunities and influence of the Labour Party.
To underline his anti-Tory credentials he used his speech in the economic debate to accuse Heath and Barber of ‘the most abject and deliberate betrayal of election promises in modern British history’, but also repeated his plea for Labour by contrast to restore integrity to politics.52 ‘He is the figure dominating this Conference; there is no question about it,’ Benn wrote.53 But the more the press lauded him as the only man of principle, the more pressure he came under from the party loyalists.
Back at Westminster, there were two big questions: whether Labour would impose a three-line whip and, if it did, whether the deputy leader could defy it without resigning. For three weeks the Jenkinsites agonised. ‘Roy Jenkins presided over endless discussions about the possibility of a “free vote”,’ Roy Hattersley remembered, ‘and how we should react if the Shadow Cabinet decided on rigid discipline. Most of the meetings were no more than the search for safety in numbers.’54 Beyond the inner core of his supporters there were still sixty or seventy, perhaps as many as ninety, long-standing pro-Marketeers, including several robustly independent characters like Tam Dalyell, Willie Hamilton and Betty Boothroyd, whom they hoped to keep on board. There was huge pressure from the whips, their colleagues and constituency parties that they could salve their consciences while preserving party unity by abstaining; but Jenkins’ unwavering determination, helped by Bill Rodgers’ skilful whipping, helped to keep them solid. From the outset Jenkins was clear that the vote on 28 October would be an historic occasion comparable to the Great Reform Bill, the repeal of the Corn Laws or the vote that brought down Neville Chamberlain in May 1940, and he conveyed this sense of destiny to his followers. ‘People didn’t want to say when asked in the future what did you do in one of the great divisions of history, “I abstained”.’55
Up until the last week he still hoped to persuade the Shadow Cabinet to allow a free vote (as both Wilson and the Chief Whip, Bob Mellish, had earlier promised) or at least a reasoned amendment which the pro-Marketers could support. On 18 October he proposed a form of words: ‘That this House, recognising the deeply held differences of view about the terms negotiated for entry into the EEC, has no confidence in the ability of the Government to deal with the consequences that will come after our entry.’56 But positions had hardened since the summer, and Wilson was now determined on outright rejection. But then the government – calculating that the Labour pro-Europeans substantially outnumbered the Tory antis – announced a free vote on its side. For a moment Wilson believed that Labour would have to allow a free vote too: Heath’s reluctant granting of a free vote torpedoed the idea that, by voting for Europe, Labour MPs would be keeping alive the hated Tory government, since it could no longer be regarded as a confidence motion. But Benn – occupying a key position as that year’s party chairman – insisted that Labour MPs could not have a free vote when conference had determined its view; and a second meeting of the Shadow Cabinet summoned at short notice at 7.15 that evening decided that the government’s statement ‘in no way altered the decision taken by the Committee earlier in the afternoon’.57 Unfortunately Jenkins was absent, having already gone out to dinner (with David Watt of the Financial Times). Next morning he protested furiously, claiming that he had only left the House at 7.07. He was not the only absentee: just twelve members of the Shadow Cabinet were present. But Wilson was unyielding, suggesting only that Heath’s ‘apparent liberality’ should be countered by demanding a General Election. Shirley Williams picked this up and proposed a motion recognising the deep divisions in the
party, condemning the government’s divisive economic policies and calling for ‘a free vote of the people’ through a General Election.58 Michael Foot offered to consider this if Jenkins undertook to try to limit the number voting with the government. But Jenkins, according to Barbara Castle’s account, would have none of it. ‘“Tony and Michael must accept that some of us are determined to vote with the Gov[ernment]. I cannot accept Michael’s bargain.” So that was that.’59 The majority voted to confirm the earlier decision for a straight ‘No’ vote with a three-line whip. Both were endorsed by a party meeting later that evening. But Michael Stewart’s motion to support the government was defeated only by 151:87 – showing the number of potential rebels holding up well – and Willie Hamilton’s plea for a free vote failed only by 140:111.fn9
The vote came at the end of a six-day debate in which, once again, Jenkins and the other pro-European members of the Shadow Cabinet (George Thomson, Harold Lever, Shirley Williams and Douglas Houghton), bound by collective responsibility, were debarred from speaking. In the final days the pressure on them mounted from all sides: 101 Labour MPs signed a round robin begging Jenkins to think again, for the sake of the party which was bigger than any of them. Thirty-seven Birmingham councillors and aldermen signed a petition calling on all the city’s Labour MPs to vote against. (But Jenkins was covered on this front, having already obtained the backing of the Stechford party to vote according to his conscience.) Others, including ‘quite a lot of fairly good people’, begged him to abstain in order to maintain Labour as a viable alternative government, without endangering Britain’s joining the Community.61 On 27 October the NEC carried by 15:8 a strongly worded motion with a touch of menace: ‘The NEC believes that the overwhelming will of the Party is to end the present economic and social evils of this Government and expresses the hope that this will be regarded as the absolute priority on 28 October.’62 To one correspondent who urged him to abstain (‘kick for touch’), however, Jenkins gave the same high-minded answer that he gave to many others:
In addition to the considerations you mention, however, it is also very important in my view that I should not join the queue of those who, as you rightly point out, have sacrificed their credibility and consistency in the past few months.63
Years later he insisted that he had never considered abstaining. ‘This was not a difficult time,’ he recalled, ‘because my mind was absolutely settled . . . One just thought one was walking with destiny . . . It was never conceivable to me that one was going to abstain in this key division.’64
On the day of the vote he lunched at Brooks’s with John Harris and Roy Hattersley, who warned him of possible violence in the lobbies; in the afternoon he listened to some of the debate; then dined at Lockets with Jennifer and the Thomsons (later joined by Taverne) before going back to the House to hear Callaghan and Heath wind up. He then walked firmly through the government lobby with Douglas Houghton, followed by another sixty-seven Labour MPs. A further twenty – including Tony Crosland – abstained, while thirty-three anti-European Tories, including Enoch Powell, voted with Labour, giving an emphatic pro-European majority of 112 (356:244). This was the proudest moment of Jenkins’ career. For fifteen years, second only to Heath, he had been the most prominent advocate of Britain belatedly joining the Community; and now, by leading the principled revolt against Labour’s U-turn, he had played the decisive role, second only to Heath, in making it happen. Through all the traumas of the next few months and years, 28 October 1971 remained a moment of high exhilaration for all the Jenkinsites. But it was all downhill from here. There was no actual violence against them, but furious anger in the loyalist ranks. Walter Harrison, the deputy Chief Whip, was ‘almost beside himself with rage’, Barbara Castle recorded: ‘“We now know who the buggers are, don’t we?” he said to me. “We won’t forget.” There is deep bitterness in the loyalist ranks at what we all felt were the “traitors” . . . Everyone felt that a deep rift had been opened up in the party which will take a long time to heal.’65 Neil Kinnock again voiced the simple partisan view. Conscientious support for Europe was accepted, he wrote in Tribune. ‘But what kind of conscience permits Labour MPs to save the creators of a million unemployed?’66 Three days after the vote the political editor of the Sunday Times, James Margach, wrote that ‘The unconcealed objective of the Left now is either to humiliate Roy Jenkins and his allies into submission – or drive them from the party.’67
The means of humiliating them immediately presented itself. For, as Wilson declared that evening, the vote on 28 October was ‘not the end but the beginning’ of a long process.68 The Commons had only voted in favour of the principle of joining the EEC: to make accession a reality now required detailed legislation, involving dozens more divisions over several months. Douglas Houghton – who as chairman of the PLP was in almost as exposed a position as Jenkins – came up with a compromise formula by announcing that having cast his one dissenting vote on the principle, he would henceforth vote the party line against the enabling legislation, on the argument that it was up to the government to find its own majority for legislation. Several others, including Hattersley and Joel Barnett, told Jenkins that for the sake of party unity they intended to do the same. The danger from a pro-European perspective was that, without the sixty-nine Labour rebels, the government might be unable to get the legislation through. Jenkins abhorred, as they all did, the prospect of voting against legislation which he ardently wanted to see passed, and the real possibility that their historic vote of 28 October could yet be undone. But he also respected the deep desire of most of his allies – many of them under intense pressure from their constituencies – to demonstrate their loyalty by getting back onside. His own position was complicated by the deputy leadership, which was up for re-election in three weeks’ time. He had chosen not to resign, despite voting against a three-line whip, arguing that to resign and immediately stand again would have been ‘a somewhat mock-heroic gesture . . . I do not like mock-heroic gestures – so I did not resign’.69 If he could be re-elected despite his vote, his position would be greatly strengthened and his offence might in time be forgiven. But in order to be re-elected he had to be seen to place party unity above his commitment to Europe.fn10
In a speech in Barnett’s Lancashire constituency on 29 October, therefore, Jenkins endorsed the Houghton formula and promised not to vote with the government again. ‘The Government must be prepared to get legislation through on its own votes . . . If it cannot get its own legislation through, the Government is not in command of the House of Commons and must take the consequences.’72 But he only promised not to vote with the government, not to vote against it. (‘So he only pledges to “abstain”,’ Barbara Castle wrote in disgust. ‘And he gets a standing ovation for it!’)73 Pressed to clarify his position before the PLP meeting on 4 November, he composed a carefully worded statement, designed (in Roy Hattersley’s words) to be ‘conciliatory without sounding penitent’,74 in which he made ‘absolutely no apology’ for his vote the previous week – ‘the only time I have gone against a 3-line whip in 23 years in this House’ – but drew a distinction between that vote and the coming series of votes:
That is not, let me say it myself, a strictly logical position. But I have to try to balance two commitments, both to keep alive the European cause in the Labour Party and to build up the strength of the Labour Party I believe the country needs.
Accordingly he promised not to vote with the government, and to vote against it whenever he could:
But in the absence of knowledge of what is being proposed I cannot undertake to cast a vote which would be directly contrary to the clearly thought out vote on the major central principle which I gave last Thursday night.
That was clear enough. But after urging the party not to concentrate its whole effort on fighting the European legislation, which merely exacerbated divisions and discredited Labour with ‘a significant part of the country’, and warning against any sort of ‘witch-hunt’ against pro-Europeans
in their constituencies, he ended with an unwise admission which undermined his previous stance: ‘I shall recognise that, when an immediate election is not pending, any deputy leader cannot continue if he is unable to accept majority decisions.’75
At the time this failed to satisfy the left. Barbara Castle (who was not at the meeting because her husband Ted was having a heart operation) heard that Jenkins had been ‘pretty uncompromising’;76 while Benn’s interpretation was that he had ‘made it absolutely clear that he did not commit himself . . . to vote with the Party throughout the year’.77 But in fact Jenkins had given more of a hostage than they realised, or he intended. He should have simply said, ‘You know my beliefs, you know my record, vote for me if you want.’ But his team was desperate to maximise his vote, so he gave an undertaking that he soon regretted. ‘It was a weak and equivocating and yet tying statement as it absolutely bound me . . . I had to vote for everything or resign. This was a major tactical error.’78
In the short run it seemed to work. Opposed by both Foot and Benn, Jenkins actually gained seven more votes than in 1970 (Jenkins 140, Foot 96, Benn 46) and came within two votes of winning on the first ballot. He must have retained the votes of at least fifty MPs who had voted against the EEC on 28 October, showing that he still commanded wider support than just the pro-Europeans. But then on the second ballot, with Benn eliminated, he picked up no more votes; or, if he did, he lost the same number, since he still had only 140 to Foot’s 126. Some who had backed him on the first ballot in order to defeat the left – Callaghan supporters, he guessed, possibly including Crosland – abstained when they thought his victory was assured.79 So his re-election was not after all a ringing endorsement. Mrs Castle was jubilant. ‘The best news for a long time is that Mike has run Roy so close for the deputy leadership.’80, fn11
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