Down the Rebel!

Leaders of the British Labor Party assembled as somberly as admirals summoned for a gold-braid court-martial. The time had come at last to deal with Aneurin Bevan, the vat-dyed black sheep, the unregenerate guerrilla of British Socialism. "He's had it this time," said one leader grimly. "Only a miracle of the fishes could save him."

Behind closed doors, the 18 members of the party's "shadow cabinet" considered not whether to punish Nye Bevan, but how. By questioning and taunting Party Chief Clement Attlee on the floor of the House of Commons during the defense debate (TIME, March 14), the rambunctious Welshman had handed his opponents an opportunity. They did not question Bevan's refusal to vote with the party in censuring the Tory government's defense plans, for 62 other Laborites, many of them pacifists, had abstained also.

But Nye Bevan alone had publicly taunted Attlee on Labor's willingness to use the H-bomb. Of course, Nye had defied the leadership many times before and got away with it (exception: when he was expelled from the party for eight months in 1939, together with the late Sir Stafford Cripps, for seeking a "united front" with the British Communists). But now patience was exhausted. "He is his own worst enemy," admitted Bevan's camp follower, Dick Grossman, unwilling this time to go along with the boss. "This is the moment for a complete surgical operation," said one right-wing Laborite. "There's no longer room for those who want the luxury of having it both ways--it's Clem or Nye, straight choice and no shenanigan."

Followers in the Streets. The Labor Party's trouble, observed the Manchester Guardian, is that it has "a leader who does not lead and a follower who does not follow." When it came time to operate, the Labor leadership's hand began to shake a little. It was not easy to pare down the clever and glamorous rebel from the coal fields of Ebbw Vale. While he offends the solid, burgherlike Labor leaders with his wild speeches on foreign policy and scares away perhaps 1,000,000 middle-of-the-road Britons who might otherwise tend toward Labor, Bevan has a rebel's popularity in the streets, shops and mines of Britain. For two hours the leaders debated what to do.

Bevanite Harold Wilson wanted only to administer a simple reprimand for bad parliamentary behavior. Labor's "keep calm" moderates were for formally censuring Nye, but not for expelling him: to do so during an election year would be to court defeat. Clem Attlee himself leaned to the moderates' view. Attlee's usual response to Nye Bevan's bull-like forays into vital issues--e.g., Formosa, negotiations with Russia, gibing at the U.S.--is to adopt as much of the Bevanite position as he can, and thereby undercut the Bevanites' appeal. It has led him up some strange alleys.

This time Labor's right wing had fire in its eyes. Chief among the determined were aging (67), Cockney-born Herbert Morrison, deputy leader and presumed heir to Clement Attlee, and brightly ambitious Hugh Gaitskell, the relatively young (48) and clever former economics professor who was Labor's last Chancellor of the Exchequer and aspires to be something higher. Troublemaker Bevan must go, they argued, for the good of the party.

They spoke with heavy backing: behind them stood most of the power of the huge, rich trade unions, from which the party draws the bulk of its resources and the most undeviating of its 6,000,000 members. To add to their already considerable power, burly, cautious Arthur Deakin, boss of the Transport Workers, and Tom Williamson, chief of the 800,000-strong General and Municipal Workers, had just boosted their membership strength in the Labor Party to a total of 1,650,000 votes, under a system which allows the unions to make union members into Labor Party members by levying compulsory political dues. This maneuver meant that in a Labor Party showdown over Bevan, the trade unions would have a clear majority.

Do not stop at censure, insisted Morrison and Gaitskell, but "withdraw the party whip" from Nye Bevan. Withdrawing the whip means not inviting an M.P. to party councils--a prelude to outright expulsion. Attlee tried to avoid a vote; Morrison and Gaitskell insisted. With Chairman Attlee not voting, the decision was nine in favor, four against.

Nye Bevan, 57, so often hailed as "the next Prime Minister but one," got the news at his small farm in Buckinghamshire, where he was down with the flu and being nursed by his M.P. wife, Jennie Lee, an equally rambunctious politician who usually urges him to move more and more leftward. As soon as the word got out, the left-wing unions and constituency groups began agitating for the Labor Party leadership to reconsider its decision. For two hours behind closed doors, Laborite M.P.s met again and decided to reject any compromise. From his sickbed, seeing that the vote was going against him, Nye dispatched a statement that was, for him, contrite. "I wish to make quite clear that what I have said or done is not a challenge to the personal authority and position of Mr. Attlee . . . Differences are on policy, and only policy." Barring a sudden softening, however, the matter was settled. Aneurin Bevan, the most dramatic figure in British politics next to Sir Winston Churchill, was headed for political ostracism.

A Long Quarrel. Looking on, the Tories could not contain their glee. Some backbenchers clamored for a snap election to capitalize on Labor's division (the Tories must call an election some time between now and October 1956, when their five-year term is up). Chancellor Rab Butler preferred to wait; he would like to improve the Exchequer's gold reserves before risking an election. Besides, he argued, Labor's quarrels will still be flaring hotly by next fall.

It is not at all certain that Rebel Nye will be the only casualty before the fight is over. Clem Attlee, his leadership plainly weakened by indecisive tussling and compromising, will have to defeat Nye decisively if his own role is not to be jeopardized. If 72-year-old Attlee should fall, Herbert Morrison would probably succeed to the leadership, and Hugh Gaitskell could hope to be his deputy and heir. For 67-year-old Herbert Morrison, there is a flaw in becoming party chairman through such a party-rending procedure--Labor can hardly expect to win an election in the few years left to him, and he therefore could not confidently count on becoming Prime Minister. Hugh Gaitskell, at 48, like Nye Bevan at 57, can afford to wait out some years in the wilderness while the party regroups and works its way back to electoral favor.

"What on earth made the shadow cabinet do it?" asked London's Economist, and answered its own question by concluding that the decision was based on "Intelligent despair. The shadow cabinet must be acting in the belief that it cannot win the election and be thinking of what will happen after defeat . . . With Mr. Bevan sowing havoc whenever havoc most hurts, another five years of opposition are likely to be Labor's lot in any event."

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