Ronald Cartland - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

After Lionel Beaumont Thomas's decision to retire on health grounds in 1933, Cartland was chosen to replace him in Herbert Austin's former constituency of King's Norton, Birmingham. His selection was supported by the Chamberlain family, long the most powerful force in Birmingham Conservative circles. He won in the 1935 election, becoming one of the youngest MPs in the House of Commons.

Cartland's maiden speech to the Commons, in May 1936, attacked the Government of then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, for its less-than-enthusiastic attitude in aiding 'distressed areas' – those parts of the UK that were suffering from extreme economic difficulties, with unemployment rates as high as 40%. In 1936, he delivered a stinging rebuke to the Treasury for balancing the budget on the backs of Britain's poor, attacking Neville Chamberlain, then serving as Baldwin's Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite Chamberlain's role in Cartland's selection as a Conservative candidate.

After Chamberlain succeeded Baldwin as Prime Minister, Cartland earned the wrath of the Conservative Party's hierarchy by taking a stand against the British Government's policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy – which brought him to the attention of other Tory dissident backbenchers, as well as Winston Churchill. Before Cartland's election in 1935 he and his sister Barbara visited Germany, where Ronald was appalled at the Nazis' persecution of the Jews.

On his return, he warned his fellow MPs of Hitler's expansionist plans for Austria and other Central European countries – and that, sooner or later, Britain would be at war with Germany.

He served as a back-bench MP in Neville Chamberlain's government. He is most famous for a speech that he gave to the house in August 1939, in which he accused the Prime Minister of having "ideas of dictatorship". Chamberlain had decided to adjourn the house until 3 October, and instructed the Conservative MPs that a majority vote in favour of adjournment would be seen as a vote of confidence. This caused outrage in the house, and it was this that prompted the young MP to stand up and make his famous speech, which also included what turned out to be prophetic words for himself: "We are in a situation that within a month we may be going to fight – and we may be going to die."