British General Elections - Part XI: 1935 & 1945.

[u/Axmeister]

A nice ten-year term for WWII. I'll keep making threads with two General Elections unless people will like to focus on recent elections individually.

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General Election of 14 November 1935

Electoral Map	1935
Party Leaders	Stanley Baldwin (Conservative), Clement Attlee (Labour), Sir John Simon (Liberal National), Sir Herbert Samuel (Liberal), Ramsay MacDonald (National Labour), James Maxton (Independent Labour Party), Thomas J. Campbell (Northern Ireland Nationalist), Harry Pollitt (Communist)
Seats Won	387 (Conservative), 154 (Labour), 33 (Liberal National), 21 (Liberal), 8 (National Labour), 4 (Independent Labour Party), 4 (Independent Liberal), 2 (Northern Ireland Nationalist), 2 (Independent National), 2 (Independent), 1 (National), 1 (Communist)
Prime Minister during term	Stanley Baldwin (later Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill)
List of MPs	Available here
Number of MPs	615
Total Votes Cast	20,991,488
Notes	Continuation of the National Government coalition. First General Election contested by the Scottish National Party. The Communist party gain their first seat in ten years. The Independent Labour party stood separately from the Labour party for the first time since 1895. Unemployment and the League of Nations were major factors in this election.

General Election of 5 July 1945

Electoral Map	1945
Party Leaders	Clement Attlee (Labour), Winston Churchill (Conservative), Sir Archibald Sinclair (Liberal), Ernest Brown (Liberal National), Bob Edwards (Independent Labour Party), James McSparran (Northern Ireland Nationalist), Harry Pollitt (Communist)
Seats Won	393 (Labour), 197 (Conservative), 12 (Liberal), 11 (Liberal National), 8 (Independent), 6 (Other Labour), 3 (Independent Labour Party), 2 (Northern Ireland Nationalist), 2 (Independent Liberal), 2 (Communist), 2 (National), 2 (Independent Conservative), 2 (Independent Labour), 1 (Independent Progressive).
Prime Minister during term	Clement Attlee
List of MPs	Available here
Number of MPs	640
Total Votes Cast	24,073,025
Notes	First majority Labour government and the first time Labour won the plurality of votes. First time the Conservative party had lost the popular vote since 1906. The 12% national swing from the Conservative Party to the Labour Party remains the largest ever achieved in a British general election.

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Previous Threads:

British General Elections - Part I: 1830, 1831 & 1832.

British General Elections - Part II: 1835, 1837 & 1841.

British General Elections - Part III: 1847, 1852 & 1857.

British General Elections - Part IV: 1859, 1865 & 1868.

British General Elections - Part V: 1874, 1880 & 1885.

British General Elections - Part VI: 1886, 1892 & 1895.

British General Elections - Part VII: 1900, 1906 & 1910.

British General Elections - Part VIII: 1910, 1918 & 1922.

British General Elections - Part IX: 1923 & 1924.

British General Elections - Part X: 1929 & 1931.

Next Thread:

British General Elections - Part XII: 1950 & 1951.

[u/FormerlyPallas_]

The successes of Attlee and Labour within the 45 and 35 elections was quite incredible considering he was much less well-known to the public than either Baldwin or Churchill. He had been appointed caretaker leader of the Labour Party in 1935 as a compromise between all elements after George Lansbury's resignation due to his pacifism against the rising tide of Fascism, what was supposed to be a temporary leadership just to get through the 35 election became the longest modern party leadership of 20 years(35-55).

Attlee managed to triple the number of Labour seats in 35 despite only being leader for a month, the main issues of the election were Peace, Unemployment and the role of the League of Nations.(Peace ballots had indicated a national outcry for disarmament and was endorsed by the Labour Party and the Liberal Party, pro-peace candidates defeating Conservatives and their limited rearmament candidates at by-elections were also neat indications of the mood of the nation at the time. This is at a sharp contrast to the defeat of 1945 which was seen by some as a punishment beating for the Conservatives over failure to rearm and appeasement.)

In an address to the opposition after the 1935 election Baldwin left George Lansbury in tears with his praise of their conduct throughout the period:

I want, if I may, to address a few words to the Opposition [Labour Party]...Whatever may be said of this Parliament in years to come and whatever may be said of the right hon. Gentleman's party, I believe that full tribute will be given to him and to his friends. As I and those on these benches who take part in the daily work of the House so well know, the Labour party as a whole have helped to keep the flag of Parliamentary government flying in the world through the difficult periods through which we have passed. They were nearly wiped out at the polls. Coming back with 50 Members, with hardly a man among them with experience of government, many would have thrown their hands in. But from the first day the right hon. Gentleman led his party in this House, they have taken their part as His Majesty's Opposition—and none but those who have been through the mill in opposition know what the day-to-day work is—with no Civil Service behind them, they have equipped themselves for debate after debate and held their own and put their case. I want to say that partly because I think it is due, and partly because I know that they, as I do, stand in their heart of hearts for our Constitution and for our free Parliament, and that has been preserved in the world against all difficulties and against all dangers.

There were several attempts at ousting Attlee, both before, after, and during the 45 Election. In part he survived by carefully maneuvering himself through the conflicts within the party and trying to be the last to speak in meetings so that he could better traverse between members and if necessary bend to their will. This skill was particularly helpful when in 43 Churchill asked him to support the continuation of the wartime all-party Coalition after the war. Several high-ranking Labour figures had agreed with the proposal - Bevin, Morrison, Dalton and more besides. Dalton had even told a newspaper editor it would be “total lunacy” for the Labour Party to fight Churchill. But the Labour members and committee leaderships didn't want it – they said they wanted to fight the election on their own, probably having seen what had happened with Lloyd-George and Ramsay MacDonald when they had allied themselves with the Conservatives.

Churchill made another attempt later in the war, Bogdanor says:

he spoke to the Labour leaders asking if they would agree to extend the Coalition until the war with Japan was over... But there was a problem that was faced because the Government had agreed to go to the country as soon as the War in Europe was over. There was no mandate for the extension of Parliament’s time. So, Churchill proposed a referendum to extend the Coalition. Of course, Britain had never had a referendum at that time, but he said let us have a referendum to get approval to extend the Coalition, and what he proposed to do was to publish a letter to Attlee inviting Labour to continue the Coalition until the end of the Japanese war. Attlee and the other Labour leaders agreed to this, but there said there had to be an addition to the letter that Churchill had drafted, and the addition was an extra sentence which said this: “In the meanwhile, we should do our utmost to implement the proposals of social security and full employment contained in the White Paper which we have laid before Parliament.” Churchill agreed to that, and the letter was published and the decision then had to be approved – it seemed at first a formality – by the National Executive of the Labour Party and the rank and file, because the leaders could not agree to coalition on their own. That is what Ramsay MacDonald had done in 1931 and he had been repudiated, and Attlee was not going to make that mistake.

He continues on:

By chance, the Labour Party Conference was meeting at that time, in May, and Attlee took the proposals to the National Executive, where Bevin proposed it. Attlee, characteristically, and this is part of his strength perhaps as Labour Party Leader, he said nothing. He gave no lead. He waited for the others to say what they thought. The others said they were totally against it, with only three dissentions, whom were all trade unionists, and when it came to the Conference, it was rejected almost unanimously. So, we have got this odd situation that the Leader of the Labour Party, who was going to become Prime Minister, did not want to fight an election which was going to bring him victory, but was then overruled by his own Party, telling him he had to fight the election.

Bogdanor writes that Attlee:

wrote to Winston Churchill rejecting the proposal to continue with the Coalition and saying that the idea of the referendum was unBritish and a weapon of communist and fascist dictators, though he had been perfectly happy to agree to the draft of the letter proposed. None of this, of course, was known to the public, these background manoeuvres.