Split With The Northern Ireland Labour Party
Midgley had adopted a position of unswerving loyalty to Britain during World War II, and was increasingly out-of-step with the majority in the NILP, who wished it to remain neutral on the constitutional question, and the nationalist minority in the party, which included his two parliamentary colleagues, Paddy Agnew and Jack Beattie. On 4 December 1942, Beattie was elected leader of the NILP group in Parliament, with Midgley as his deputy, and this was the final straw.
Midgley resigned from the NILP on 15 December, and was followed by the departure of the Londonderry and North Belfast branches of the party. Although his own Willowfield branch expressed its support, it did not disaffiliate. Although some of Midgley's opponents believed that he would join the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), he instead announced the formation of the Commonwealth Labour Party, on 19 December. The new party first met in January 1943, and adopted all Midgley's positions. It attempted to make links with the British Labour Party, but was rebuffed. Later in the year, Milton Gordon led the Londonderry branch back into the NILP, having come to believe that the new party was harming the labour movement. No trade union branch ever affiliated.
Read more about this topic: Commonwealth Labour Party
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