One hundred years ago today, the 1926 General Strike broke out in Britain. To mark the anniversary, Alfie Steer has explored its significance for Britain’s parliamentary system.
In 1925, the private owners of Britain’s mining industry (nicknamed the ‘sick man of British capitalism’, [Miliband, p.121]) tried to revive its international competitiveness by proposing a series of drastic wage cuts and an extension in working hours. This was fiercely opposed by the miners’ union (the Miners Federation of Great Britain) by that time numbering three-quarters of a million members under the militant leadership of Herbert Smith and A. J. Cook. The miners were also supported by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), representing most of Britain’s trade unions. The TUC’s leadership (the General Council) pledged that if the miners were forced into an industrial dispute, all other unions would also go on strike in solidarity.
Such a confrontation was initially avoided in late July 1925, when the Conservative Government agreed to subsidise miners’ wages while a Royal Commission (headed by Liberal MP Herbert Samuel) investigated the state of the industry. However, nine months after this initial settlement (celebrated as ‘Red Friday’) the threat of a General Strike re-emerged when the Samuel Commission’s findings again recommended wage cuts. When this was refused by the MFGB, mine owners locked out their workers, sparking a strike. The TUC once again pledged their support, and following a breakdown of negotiations with the Government, the General Strike officially began in the early hours of 4 May 1926.
According to Jonathan Schneer, the General Strike represented a ‘titanic struggle between the world’s most powerful and best organised labour movement and Europe’s most effective and self-confident government’ [Schneer, p.1]. Three million people ceased work over nine days, bringing to a halt most major industries and virtually all public transport. Most newspapers ceased production, and even small businesses, cinemas and pubs were forced to close. In all, 162 million working days were lost. The strike demonstrated the power of the organized working-class to effectively bring the nation to a standstill, and also (in many ad hoc ways) take on the role of running essential services, including food distribution. It also showcased the deep attachment to ideas of ‘solidarity’ among the trade union rank-and-file, as shown by the fact that the vast majority of those who took part in the strike did so not out of any dispute with their own employers, but out of sympathy for the miners. It also appeared to have far-reaching implications for Britain’s parliamentary democracy.
While the TUC’s General Council and the Labour Party leadership insisted that the strike was simply an industrial tactic designed to force a resumption in negotiations, the Conservative Government portrayed it as ‘a revolutionary threat to “the Constitution” and to parliamentary government’ [Schneer, p.3]. By disrupting essential services, it was seen as holding the country to ransom, and even threatening the government’s fundamental authority. In the House of Commons, the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin claimed that the trade union leadership were acting as an ‘alternative government… threatening the basis of ordered government and going nearer to proclaiming civil war than we have been for centuries past’ [Baldwin, quoted in Miliband, p.134]. Amidst growing (albeit overblown) fears of communist subversion in Britainless than ten years after the Russian Revolution, this carried significant weight among the Conservative Party and much of the British establishment. This was echoed by members of the declining Liberal Party, most notably Sir John Simon, who even tried to make the case in Parliament that the strike was illegal, as it primarily involved workers not in direct dispute with their own employers.
While Labour’s leader, Ramsay MacDonald, criticised the government’s role in allowing the strike to break out in the first place, he was also privately opposed, doubting its ability to succeed, and fearing that it could damage the Labour Party’s electoral credibility. Given the Labour Party’s long-established attachment to achieving its aims via parliamentary means (winning elections and introducing reforms via legislation) the strike was also considered by some Labour politicians to be outright illegitimate, as it challenged the government’s authority outside of Parliament. [Miliband, p.144]. While the strike demonstrated the remarkable unity of the organised labour movement at the grassroots level, it also ‘underlined the gulf developing between the [Labour] Parliamentary Party and the trade unions’ [Pugh, p.191].
The TUC’s General Council, while officially supportive of the strike, also went into the dispute with major apprehensions about its chances of success. In the end, such fears were well placed. The nine-month period between ‘Red Friday’ and the strike’s outbreak had allowed the government to prepare extensively, including the appointment of regional ‘commissioners’ and the recruitment of thousands of strike-breaking ‘volunteers’ who oversaw the running of essential services over the nine days. This limited the most disruptive elements of the strike, and in some instances led to violent clashes between strikers and the police. Despite hopes that the strike could force the government back into negotiations, it was soon clear that the latter would accept nothing other than an unconditional surrender from the unions. When the largely unprepared TUC soon realised that the strike faced such potentially insurmountable state opposition (including the threat of military action) it attempted to reach a settlement. After these desperate attempts also failed, the TUC was forced to eventually surrender, calling off the strike on 12 May. While the miners would stay out on strike for another six months, they too were eventually forced back to work, largely accepting the mine owners’ initial demands.
The General Strike therefore had lasting legacies for Britain’s parliamentary democracy. Its defeat discredited militant strategies of industrial ‘direct action’ for a generation and reinforced the belief within the labour movement that their aims could only be achieved through ‘the parliamentary road’ [Schneer, p.353]. It ‘appeared to confirm the view that [Labour] had always pressed upon the labour movement, that Parliament and in Parliament alone lay the workers’ salvation.’ [Miliband, p.151]. Meanwhile, the failure of the Liberal Party to stake an independent course between the Conservative Government and Labour opposition also accelerated its decline as a major political party.
Yet despite MacDonald’s fears, the strike did not clearly damage Labour’s electoral chances. Eight days after the strike’s end, Labour won a parliamentary by-election in Hammersmith North, on an impressive 11.5 percent swing. Indeed, despite the strike’s defeat, the public sympathy it incurred appeared to strengthen Labour’s popularity among many working-class communities. The subsequent 1927 Trade Union Act, which banned ‘sympathy strikes’ and placed new restrictions on trade union financial contributions to the party, also deepened union loyalty behind the Labour, and gave new salience to the need to win the subsequent general election. In that sense, the strike’s defeat strengthened MacDonald’s cautious leadership of the party, reinforced its focus on electoral success as the primary means of achieving political change, and paved the way for the 1929 Labour government, and arguably its collapse three years later.
A.S.
Further Reading
Ralph Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism: A Study in the Politics of Labour, new edn. (Pontypool, 2009).
Martin Pugh, Speak for Britain! A New History of the Labour Party (London, 2010)
Jonathan Schneer, Nine Days in May: The General Strike of 1926 (Oxford, 2026)
David Torrance, The Edge of Revolution: The General Strike that Shook Britain (London, 2026)