Abstract
When the Labour government passed the Ireland Act in 1949 it seemed that the Irish Question had passed out of British politics, if not out of British history. But it could be argued that the general and more famous, social legislation of that government was ultimately of greater significance for the future of Northern Ireland at least, and therefore of the whole of Ireland and indeed of the United Kingdom. The Labour government’s implementation of the welfare state and the national health service, which built upon the wartime Beveridge report on the social services, was intended to bring about at least a modicum of comparability between the social and economic development of the various regions that comprised the kingdom. And while individual members of the Unionist Party might entertain suspicions about the nature of ‘socialism’, they could hardly stand idly by and see policies introduced in the English regions, Scotland and Wales which affected those industrially disadvantaged areas, which could with considerable benefit be extended to Northern Ireland.
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References
D. G. Boyce, ‘Ulster: Some Consequences of Devolution’, Planet, 13 (August/September 1972), p. 6.
D. Harkness, Northern Ireland since 1920 (Dublin, 1983), p. 131.
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For an example see Martin Collins (ed.), Ireland After Britain (London, 1985), esp. p. 150.
Austen Morgan, Harold Wilson, p. 449. But by 3 June, Benn confessed that on the withdrawal question, he might ‘well be in a minority’ (Tony Benn, Against The Tide: Diaries, 1973–1976 (London, 1989), p. 164.
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Ibid., Ch. 8.
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Kenny, op. cit., Ch. 16.
Ibid., p. 103.
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Kenny, op. cit., p. 83.
For a survey of British public opinion in 1986 see James Naughtie, ‘The View From the Other End of the Telescope’, Fortnight (Belfast), No. 245 (November 1986), pp. 4–6, and Conor O’Cleary, ‘North Slips Down Everyone’s Agenda’, ibid., pp. 8–10.
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© 1996 D. G. Boyce
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Boyce, D.G. (1996). A Question of Bipartisanship, 1950–86: British Politics and the Northern Ireland Problem. In: The Irish Question and British Politics, 1868–1996. British History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24928-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24928-2_5
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