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Commonwealth Labour Party
The Commonwealth Labour Party (CWLP) was a minor political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1942 by Harry Midgley, former leader of the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), in order to pursue his brand of labour Ulster Unionism, unionism. Split with the Northern Ireland Labour Party Midgley had adopted a position of unswerving loyalty to Britain during World War II, and was increasingly out-of-step with the majority in the NILP, who wished it to remain neutral on the constitutional question, and the Nationalism (Ireland), nationalist minority in the party, which included his two parliamentary colleagues, Paddy Agnew (Stormont MP), Paddy Agnew and Jack Beattie. On 4 December 1942, Beattie was elected leader of the NILP group in Parliament, with Midgley as his deputy, and this was the final straw.G. S. Walker, "The Commonwealth Labour Party in Northern Ireland, 1942-7", ''Irish Historical Studies'', Vol.24, No.93, May 1984, pp.69–91 Midgley resigned from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Midgley
Henry Cassidy Midgley, PC (NI), known as Harry Midgley (1893 – 29 April 1957) was a prominent trade-unionist and politician in Northern Ireland. Born to a working-class Protestant family in Tiger's Bay, north Belfast, he followed his father into the shipyard. After serving on the Western Front in the Great War, he became an official in a textile workers union and a leading light in the Belfast Labour Party (BLP). He represented the party's efforts in the early 1920s to provide a left opposition to the Unionist government of the new Northern Ireland while remaining non-committal on the divisive question of Irish partition. From 1932 as secretary of the BLP's successor, the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), he urged a closer relationship to British labour movement. Midgley's support for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, and more broadly his criticism of Irish neutrality in the Second World War. antagonised Catholic voters and precipitated a split with party colleagues. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |