THE COMING OF THE BRITISH CONSERVATIVE PARTY TO OFFICE IN 1951 AND THE NATIONALISATION OF THE ANGLO-IRANIAN OIL COMPANY’S CRISIS.

The aim of this article is to examine how the Conservative Party, which came to power after the fall of the Labour Government in October 1951, dealt with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s crisis.

The Conservative Party traditionally and conspicuously supported standing for the British Empire and its expansion. It was the Conservative Government that brought the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s crisis to a settlement by 1954. The Conservative Party took office on 25^th October 1951 with Churchill as Prime Minister presiding over the crisis. Churchill was overtly a defender of British imperial power and believed in taking firm action against those who challenged British power and interests. This example will illustrate: Churchill once said in the 1930s about India’s independence that, ‘the Indians would never be fit to govern themselves, and that in any case to give them independence would undermine the whole of the British Empire.’¹ On another occasion, regarding India’s independence, Churchill commented: ‘you will depress the British heartbeat all over the globe.’² First, studies will be made about the Conservative Party’s attitude towards colonialism.

The Conservative Party proclaims the necessity for capital – labour co-operation and the end of restrictive practices both between employers and among employees. It is the party of social mobility. ‘Quality and not equality’ and ‘opportunity rather than security’ are two of its slogans.’³

The Conservative Party’s policies are on the whole hard to characterise. ‘At some periods ideas such as individual freedom will be clearly articulated and may even produce concrete policy proposals designed to promote such values.’⁴ At some other periods, as witnessed in the policy of the Labour Party, and any other party, it may ‘seem to embody so wide a range of political ideas that few distinctive doctrinal features can be detected.’⁵

The Conservative Party, as was touched on earlier, always overtly felt a strong sense of involvement with the Empire. Such sentiment was evident at the party’s annual conference in 1949:

Let us never forget the Imperial spirit, the indefinable, sentimental, if you like, feeling which is the spark that sets our reason aglow; and it is our reason that tells us that the policy which we are now advocating, the policy of Joseph Chamberlain and the policy of Benjamin Disraeli, remains the right one.⁶

The ‘indefinable, sentimental feeling’ for most Conservatives is simple pride. For the Conservatives, the British imperial achievement was something to be distinctly proud of. Conservatives credited the Empire with

maintaining over a large part of the Earth’s surface the rule of law, of justice, and the moral influence of the only league of nations which has ever worked. More than this, it was held to provide the whole basis of Britain’s claim to national greatness in modern times; the Conservatives were nothing if not conservers of Britain’s greatness.⁷

The Conservatives labelled themselves the ‘imperial party’ and their attitudes towards Empire distinguished their party from others as fundamentally as, for example, towards nationalisation. According to the 1950 Conservative Conference Report, ‘socialism by its nature could not comprehend the problems of the Empire, particularly the Colonial Empire.’⁸ It continued by saying about socialism that: ‘they nurse a few prejudices and call these a policy, but they regard the responsibilities of the Colonial Empire as a tiresome hindrance to other things.’⁹

1. F. LONGFORD, Eleven at No. 10, (London: Harrap, 1984), p. 48.
2. Ibid.
3. S. E. FINER, Comparative Government, (Middlesex: Penguin, 1970), p. 104.
4. M. BELOFF and G. PEELE, The Government of the United Kingdom, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980), p. 154.
5. Ibid.
6. A delegate to the 1949 Conservative Conference: Conference Report, p. 53 in D. GOLDSWORTHY, Colonial Issues in British Politics, 1945-1961, (London: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1971), p. 167.
7. L. D. EPSTEIN, British Politics in the Suez Crisis, (London: Pall Mall Press, 1964), p. 20.
8. 1950 Conservative Conference Report, pp. 30-33, in D. GOLDSWORTHY, op. cit., p. 168.
9. Ibid.