BEN GREENE AND THE ASSOCIATION OF LABOUR PARTIES

In September 1932 an article on ‘The Local Labour Parties’ appeared in a new journal published by the Society of Labour Candidates. This was the first shot in a campaign which reached its culmination five years later. The author was Ben Greene, who was soon to initiate, organise and lead the Constituency Parties Movement. Greene argued that local parties lacked influence because they were unorganised. ‘As long as four to five hundred local party units are free to fling into the Party Conference a host of commonplace expressions of opinion and a medley of new half baked ideas, the influence of the political section of the Party will remain small. But with proper organisation, the varied products of their wonderful political energy could be digested, considered and presented in an orderly responsible manner to the Party Conference’. He proposed a national organisation which could convert and form constituency party opinion, and thereby give it a chance against the trade union bloc vote at Conference. The following summer he made a first attempt to give this idea a solid basis.

Ben Greene was a six foot seven extrovert with an abundance of charm and confidence, an infectious energy and a great talent for organisation. A member of the well-known brewing family (and a first cousin of Graham Greene) he was educated at Berkhamsted and Oxford, where he joined the Society of Friends, and later became involved in relief work in Eastern Europe.