Arthur Creech Jones - Travelling

Travelling

At the 1929 general election, Creech Jones fought the constituency of Heywood and Radcliffe as Labour Party candidate. He left his position at the TGWU after the election to be organising secretary of the Workers' Travel Association, which funded foreign trips for people employed in industry. He spent a large part of the next decade travelling, writing up his trips in the "Travel Log", the journal of the Workers' Travel Association. Having visited most countries of Europe including Nazi Germany, Creech Jones directed a rescue of hundreds of Jews from Czechoslovakia through the WTA after the Munich Agreement was signed.

After the formation of the National Government, Creech Jones at first went along with his TGWU colleague Ernest Bevin in joining the Socialist League. He was a leading figure in the National I.L.P. Affiliation Committee which sought to persuade the Independent Labour Party to continue its affiliation to the Labour Party, but when the fight was lost, he resigned from the ILP and joined the Labour Party directly. Initially unwilling to try for a seat in Parliament, it was reported to be his observation of events in Germany which persuaded him to change his mind and at the 1935 general election he won the constituency of Shipley as a Labour Party candidate; his election was helped by the Conservative vote being split between the official candidate and the sitting Member of Parliament (MP), who had been deselected.