My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyimpossible to be loyal I do not stay in the team to intrigue against colleagues, butleave it and challenge them openly. It is a simple principle, which in these days maybe regarded as simpliste, but it seems to me the only honourable course. Before youleave, you should put up with much, and I certainly did in the Labour Party, witheverything except the complete betrayal of the mass of the people who had trusted us.It seemed to be my duty in the Labour Party to do what I could to keep the partytogether, as the only hope at that time of getting anything done in Britain, and to thatend I associated with MacDonald while remaining an active member of the I.L.P.executive. However, my position in the party was in no way dependent onMacDonald. I had four sources of independent strength. The first was my election tothe National Executive of the Labour Party by vote both of the constituency partiesand of the trade unions. The second was my simultaneous membership of the NationalAdministrative Council of the I.L.P. by election of its members; I believe I was theonly member of both governing bodies. The third was my territorial strength inBirmingham, which I found a Conservative stronghold and which in five years undermy leadership was turned into a Labour fortress throughout the central area. Thefourth was my capacity as a parliamentary debater, combined with my ability to drawthe largest platform audiences in the country. These four attributes in conjunctionmade me a power in the party independent of MacDonald or anyone else.I was still too young to play a leading role myself, and was therefore constrained towork through established personalities and institutions. This was the only effectiveway of implementing the ideas which moved me, and to this end it was certainlynecessary in some degree to accept the philosopher's advice: 'Harness to your chariota conspicuous donkey, a most conspicuous donkey'. Yet the primary reason for myclose association with MacDonald was party unity rather than any considerable hopethat he personally would act as an executive instrument. He was an agreeable personbut, as I found later in government, quite incapable of decision and action.Striking evidence of this weakness in MacDonald was already provided in aconversation I had with him in the summer of 1924, which I well remember. He hadrecently had a considerable success in foreign affairs and, as the fear of anyrevolutionary conduct by the government had soon vanished, the Labour Party was onthe crest of a little wave which might have carried it to a majority. I urged him to askfor a dissolution and an immediate election. 'No, my boy,' he replied, 'that is whatLloyd George would do, much too opportunist. I know a trick worth two of that; wewill carry on and show them what we can do with a long spell of steady work.' Hecarried on, and six months later the steady old moke in his proudly worn officialuniform of blue and gold harness, pulling his little cart of minor meddling inadministrative muddles, without a thought even of a larger opportunism, and certainlywithout even a smoke dream of creative action, caught the harsh lash of a fatecontemptuous of easy complacency, right in his tenderest part, from the Zinovievletter which the Tories were much too innocent to know anything about. At thatmoment I was reminded of one of the most tedious of his seemingly terminableanecdotes. It was an account of riding donkeys up the Himalayas, which wandered tosome kind of conclusion with the words: 'So on they went, on and on and up and up,indefatigable beasts'. It is not always the most patient donkey which wins the race,though admittedly, as we in Britain sometimes know to our cost, it can happen.147 of 424