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Concept
Common Wealth Party
Summary
The Common Wealth Party (CW) was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom with parliamentary representation in the House of Commons from 1942 (the middle of the Second World War) until 1946. Thereafter CW continued to function, essentially as a pressure group, until 1993.
Common Wealth was founded on 26 July 1942 in World War II by the alliance of two left-wing groups: the 1941 Committee – a think tank centred on Picture Post owner Edward G. Hulton and its 'star' writers J.B. Priestley and Spanish Civil War veteran Tom Wintringham; and the neo-Christian Forward March movement led by Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP) Sir Richard Acland, along with independents such as the industrialist and designer Robert Dudley Best and former Liberals who believed that the party had no direction. It aimed to be more appealing to Labour's potential voters than those leaning towards Conservatism.
Common Wealth stood for three principles: Common Ownership, Morality in Politics and Vital Democracy. Disagreeing with the electoral pact established with other parties in the wartime coalition, key figures in the 1941 Committee began sponsoring independent candidates in by-elections under the banner of the Nine Point Group.
Following the electoral success of Tom Driberg with this support in 1942, the Committee, a social movement, proposed becoming a political party through a merger with Forward March, though many preferred movement status. Through pressure from Priestley and Wintringham, 'Party' was never formally part of Common Wealth's name. The group was led by Acland (MP), Vernon Bartlett, J.B. Priestley, and Tom Wintringham. Its programme of common ownership echoed that of the Labour Party but had more idealistic perspective, later termed "libertarian socialist". It came to reject the State-dominated form of socialism adopted by Labour under the influence of Beatrice and Sidney Webb, aligning itself instead with co-operative, syndicalist and guild socialist traditions. A party proposal became that personal income, by taxation, should have an upper limit.
Official source
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