Britain Political Consensus

In times of war and post-war, Britain’s political situation is unstable but yet it is fundamental for the proper functioning of any country engaged in the Second World war to establish solid political basis. Barely recovered from the Depression of 1929, Britain declares war on Germany the 3rd September of 1939. From this date until 1964, Britain developed a political consensus but to what extent is this a valid interpretation of Britain throughout this period ?

A political consensus, by definition, is an opinion or a position reached by a group as a whole, it is a general agreement. The idea that a political consensus developed in Britain during 1939 and 1964 is hotly debated amongst historians. While some agree that the Conservative and Labour parties were in agreement in multiple goals and policies such as full employment, the welfare state (system created in 1946 that intends to improve health, education, employment and social security in the United Kingdom) and cooperation with the trade union; others believed that there were deep differences between the parties’s economic and social goals. What is undeniable is that all parties were agreed upon the outcome they were trying to prevent.

During the Second World war, Britain was governed by the National Government which is a coalition of some or all major political parties (or called Coalition Governments) and was headed by Winston Churchill, who was considered to “be the right man in the right job at the right time” (Ingersoll Ralph, 1940). The war experience of a Coalition Government may have drawn the policies of both major parties together as a result of the practical experience of working towards the destruction of the enemy. This air of agreement carried through into the postwar period where a shared understanding between the political protagonists surely existed because of the wartime unity.

For the historian Paul Addison (born in 1943), there was indeed a political consensus during the Attlee Government (1945-1951) on an economic and social level, in fact, the historian Peter Hennesey (born in 1947) thinks that the political consensus has expanded on defense and foreign policy. The reason for that is the influence of the wartime cooperation and collaboration that lasted for the Labour’s government since the Conservative Party agreed on the Labour’s social and economic policies when the Labour Party didn’t during the Conservative’s government (1951-1964).

The measures organized and executed by the Labour government put the bases of this consensus. The Conservative Party accepted those numerous changes and promised not to cancel them in the industrial charter of 1947.

The post-war consensus can be considered as a form of Keynianism, a mixed economy with the nationalization of large companies (the Bank of England was nationalized along with railways, coal mining, public utilities and heavy industry), the establishment of the National Health Service and the creation of the welfare state. These measures were established by all the governments (that they are Labour or Conservative) during the post-war period. Thanks to the economical strategies of the post-war consensus, Britain was in a budgetary surplus in spite of the strong reduction of the purchasing power. Multiple improvements have been made in the social sector with the establishment of several Acts such as The 1946 National Insurance Acts or The 1945

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