National Labour Organisation - 1935 Election

1935 Election

MacDonald remained Prime Minister as the head of a coalition government until June 1935 when he gave way to Stanley Baldwin and became instead Lord President of the Council. At the 1935 general election the party sponsored 20 candidates and saw 8 of them elected. Immediately after the election, the News-Letter argued that Labour supporters of the National Government were hidden "thanks to the trade union 'terror'", and that the party ought to appeal for the votes of all socialists and trade unionists who were opposed to being herded into the political wilderness. When Ramsay MacDonald's son Malcolm fought the Ross and Cromarty by-election of 1936, he found himself opposed by Randolph Churchill standing as a Conservative and arguing that 'National Labour' was a "sham device" with no real support. After learning of his son's success, Ramsay MacDonald corrected a correspondent who had referred to "Labour's defeat" by asserting that "Labour was victorious, and a queer mixture which had neither principle nor political policy, now known as Opposition Labour, was defeated".