Joseph Lyons - Resignation From The Labor Party

Resignation From The Labor Party

When Scullin returned in January 1931, he reappointed Theodore (as it had become clear Theodore would not be charged with corruption) to the Cabinet as Treasurer, which Lyons took as a rejection of his own policies. Lyons immediately resigned from the Cabinet, and then in March from the Labor Party. Accompanied by another senior minister in the Scullin government, James Fenton, and three other right-wing Labor MPs, he formed the "All for Australia League" and crossed the floor to sit on the opposition benches. The opposition Nationalist Party and the five dissident Labor MPs (as well as three conservative independent MPs) soon merged to form a new party, the United Australia Party.

Although the new party was basically the Nationalist Party under a new name, Lyons was chosen as leader of the party (and thus became Leader of the Opposition) rather than the old Nationalist leader John Latham, as it was recognised that (as an affable family man with the common touch) he was a far more electorally appealing figure than the aloof Latham, and his Labor background and his Catholicism would allow him to win traditional Labor support groups (working-class voters and Irish Catholics) over to the new party.

In March, at about the same time as Lyons led his group of defectors from the right of the Labor Party across the floor, 5 left-wing NSW Labor MPs, supporters of New South Wales Premier Jack Lang, also split from the official Labor Party over the government's economic policies (for Lyons they had been too radical, for the Langites they were not radical enough), forming a "Lang Labor" group on the cross-benches and costing the government its majority in the House of Representatives. Late in the year, the Langite MPs supported a UAP no-confidence motion and brought the government down, forcing an early election.

At the 1931 election, Lyons and the UAP offered stable, orthodox financial policies, and portrayed an image of putting national unity above class conflict (given credibility by Lyons, a working-class man leading a party made of largely of middle- and upper-class conservatives), while Labor remained split between the official party and the Langites. The result was a huge victory for the UAP, which took 34 seats against 18 seats for the two wings of the Labor Party combined. The new government was sworn in January 1932. Lyons became the third former Labor Party MP to become a non-Labor Prime Minister.