On Fenner Brockway, pacifist, socialist, and anti-colonialist. These notes on these two books by Fenner Brockway were originally in Books I Read in 2025 Part 2 but I've taken them from there and put them here in their own post.
Fenner Brockway, Towards Tomorrow
To return to the High Wycombe theme from the Martin O'Neill book outlined in Books I Read in 2025 Part 1, I met Fenner Brockway in December 1982. When I say 'met', we both spoke at a demonstration, him aged 94, me a long-haired 18-year-old. I was a member of a peace camp living in tents outside the USAF nuclear missile control base in Daws Hill Lane, High Wycombe. We camped outside over the snowy winter and I think the camp went on for weeks or months (although Wikipedia says it went on until 1985, by which time I had long gone to university, so I may have underestimated its longevity). At the demo supporters came, held hands in a ring, singing I think 'We Shall Overcome' or something like that. My dad was there to support, reluctantly, as he did not even agree with unilateral nuclear disarmament which was our wider aim. I sat in a car with a PA system and gave a short speech, so young I did not really know what to say and I'm not sure it was very long. Fenner then got out of the back seat and bellowed out a powerful speech, unassisted by any amplification. I think he had been brought by his daughter who I believe lived nearby and had volunteered her dad's services to the local peace movement that I was involved in (the meetings I attended included a mixed bunch from pro-Soviet communists to Quakers). Looking back now, however, I wonder if the woman who brought Fenner and sat in the car with him was Margaret Glover a fellow peace activist (and later partner, I believe) who lived in Wycombe and is mentioned often in his later autobiographical book 98 Not Out (see below). Brockway died in 1988, 6 years later, aged 99. His daughter who was there (if it was her) must also have long passed away by now.
Brockway refers to his involvement in the High Wycombe peace movement in 98 Not Out, published towards the end of his life in 1986. Here he says, "I became particularly involved at High Wycombe. This picturesque town at the foot of the Chilterns is the military headquarters of the British and American forces in Britain, both of the RAF and the American bases, and also the reserve headquarters for the Americans and NATO in Europe, to be used if driven out of Stuttgart and Belgium. It has the deepest bunker in Britain, for the military leaders. A government survey named High Wycombe as the most dangerous place in England in the event of a nuclear war. No wonder." (pp. 72-3). When Fenner says he was 'particularly involved at High Wycombe', I knew, obviously, about the demo that he and I attended. But it sounds like his involvement in Wycombe went further which I don't recall being aware of at the time. I read later in 98 Not Out that he had worked at an international level with members of the Wycombe Peace Council (like Glover). Some meetings of the latter I attended in the early 1980s.
Brockway was a radical legend and it was amazing to have spoken on the same platform as him. I think it was just the two of us who spoke. There are many other overlaps between us beyond the peace movement - he was born in a colony, in Calcutta, and I was too in Kenya, and he became very involved in Africa, travelling widely in the world, also India (campaigning for independence), the USA, and Europe. Like my mum, he had missionary parents and was sent to a boarding school for the children of missionaries, consequently seeing little of his parents. Brockway started off as a journalist becoming an activist, an MP first in 1929, for the Labour Party, and later a Lord despite being opposed to the House of Lords. For 15 years from 1950 he was the MP for Slough, near where I lived as a child. Brockway was anti-imperialist, pro-immigration, and, like lots of other left-wingers of the 20th century, against membership of the (then) EC (I voted Remain in the 2016 UK EU referendum but with little enthusiasm, for left-wing rather than nationalist reasons). He was anti-racist (much maligned as such, and for his pro-immigration views) and very involved in promoting the interests of what was then called the 'third world'.
In the book, an autobiography, Brockway makes comments about the attractiveness of women he met, and was unfaithful to his wife who he had 4 children with. But he also supported the suffragettes and was effectively a feminist, which must have been a very marginal perspective at the time, especially for a man (I came of age during second-wave feminism, fully adopted in the milieux I moved in in those times). He became (like me) a vegetarian as a young man and I assume this was highly unusual at the time. He argues for a liberal attitude to sex in this book, first published in 1997, and had obviously picked up sympathetically some of the vibe of the 1960s to which he would have already been predisposed with his existing views, but again something notable to do for a man in his 70s in that decade. Brockway was a pacifist, probably what he was most famous for, imprisoned in the First World War for 3 years for this, including hard labour and time in solitary confinement. But he was pragmatic and in the Second World War he saw the case for fighting, while continuing, nevertheless, to support conscientious objectors. Brockway also visited Spain during the Spanish Civil War, a supporter of taking up arms against Franco. His pragmatism even allowed him to be on friendly terms with some Tories.
This book is about Brockway's political life up to the 1970s. It is more about elites than ordinary people and is heavily populated with the many famous people he met (to the extent it feels a bit like name-dropping), and with speculations about whether he had an influence on important changes (he does seem to be trying to make the case for his legacy). His political life was very much focused on elected politics, a member of the Independent Labour Party as well as Labour Party, but not membership of government. Although he was a rebel, during his Slough MP years he decided to be loyal to the government, including voting for war in Korea, which he did not agree with and later regretted. So maybe he did have an eye on higher office. Brockway was influenced by Marxism but not a Marxist politically, believing in revolution but a peaceful and democratic one and critical of attempts at communism.
At the start of this book Brockway explains its title saying 'The Tomorrow of which I have dreamed remains distant', and at the end he says 'Politically no less than personally I am unfulfilled, but I am confident that tomorrow the purpose of yesterday and today will reach fulfilment. Towards Tomorrow'. Depressingly, in a world with climate change likely wiping out much of life in the future, genocide, fascism in power, and more, it seems the world he dreamed of is even further away than it was at any time in his life, at least his later life, and his feeling of hope that it nevertheless will be achieved is difficult to realistically believe in.
Brockway was a radical leftist, globalist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, pro-immigration, and a peace activist, who focused on what he wanted to change and worked hard at doing all he could through politics to do that. An outspoken rebel who pushed ahead outside conventional politics and assumptions of the time, challenging and fighting them. A deserved legend. He wrote many books but as far as I am aware there is no biography of Brockway, only these autobiographical books and I don't know of any publications on his political thought. His papers are archived at Cambridge University. Someone should write a book on Fenner Brockway's political thought.
Fenner Brockway, 98 Not Out
Having read Fenner Brockway's autobiography Towards Tomorrow (see above), published in 1977 when Brockway was 89, I got hold of a copy of 98 Not Out published in 1986 when he was, of course, 98. He says it's not an autobiography and it's not in the sense of being a complete outline of his life. But it is autobiographical, updating on his activities and thought since Towards Tomorrow, especially in the peace movement which was always his main focus. But there are also observations on his political views and ideas.
The book covers Brockway's time in the House of Lords from 1964 (when he lost his seat as an MP) and his view on this institution which he believes should be replaced - he explains by what. There is a lot on the peace movement, nuclear weapons, and cooperation with Eastern bloc so-called communism in the movement and the complications of that. A good half of the book is on his work for disarmament (on which he makes the point that poorer states are sceptical about non-proliferation in a world when rich states asking for it have not been that willing to disarm). He argues that CND (which I have been a member of for many years) has been one of the most influential and supported organisations in history (maybe overstating the case on influence when you consider that many countries are still armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons). He continues on the theme of Towards Tomorrow of famous people he has met. There are his belief in democratic socialism, an account of the position of women in society, and thoughts on imperialism which he worked hard to end. He does chart some great progress during his life - the welfare state, greater equality for women, and the end of colonialism in many places, if not imperialism. I don't think in my lifetime, as someone of a later generation, I could say there has been any progress like that, mostly just backwards movement. There is even a bit of spirituality in nature as the book closes.
Brockway was a dedicated pacifist and socialist yet pragmatic; radical in some areas but more conservative in others. For example, he pulled back on his pacifism, seeing cases for fighting in the Second World War, Spain, apartheid South Africa and other instances. While a radical he expresses unhappiness with direct action, yet was very supportive of the Greenham Common Peace Camp. There are some great little snippets. He tells us about how, when he was an MP, Margaret Thatcher used to drive him home from the House of Commons, as he lived near her in Finchley. This would have been long before she was leader of the Conservative Party. Brockway says of her: "I acknowledge her dedication to her convictions. She believes in capitalism and has applied her beliefs. I wish many Labour spokesmen believed in socialism as completely". Interestingly, and unlike others on the left, Fenner says he agreed with her policy of the right to buy (by tenants of their own council houses) as home ownership is, he says, a natural desire. But he argues it should have been on the proviso that if and when people wanted to sell their house it had to be back to the council, so protecting the principle of houses for those in need. Brockway argues that collectivism has been over-emphasised as a goal by socialists and that it is a means not an end, a means for the achievement of individualism (by which he means the development of the individual) which he believes should be our real concern. He promotes associationalism, a role for local community bodies providing social services, this not just being the preserve of the state; a more cooperative than state socialism. In discussing the experience of women there is some self-criticism, saying quite bluntly he has accepted devoted service from women without giving much back in the way of equality or depth. Men, he says, need a revolution as much as women. While critical of communism, Fenner also mentions in places that he felt Communist governments represented the feelings of their populations.
There are some important truths that I felt as a young man getting active in politics in the 1980s but which seem to not come to the fore much nowadays, such as the simple edict: "It is to the shame of this generation that millions die unnecessarily in a world that has the capacity to provide all with their needs". As with Towards Tomorrow there is quite a bit of recording his legacy and changes Brockway feels he may have contributed to, including in one place where he says he "was able to take a prominent part in the successful resistance to the attempt to overthrow the Russian Revolution". I wanted to know more! Brockway also advocates a liberal socialism, arguing that the denial of economic and social conditions essential for a full life is a scandal of capitalism, while so is the denial of freedom of thought in the East under so-called communism, a transgression of liberty, both types of human rights needing to be implemented. This seems right to me but I have found some on the left quite scathing about the idea of socialism being also 'liberal'.
It's great Brockway wrote this book and Towards Tomorrow because his was a very notable and radical life where he was mostly, for me, an important figure on the right side, the left one. Without these books some of what he did may have got lost and they are also contributions to 20th century history. Brockway died two years after the book was published, aged 99, not bad considering he admits in this book to having been addicted to three double whiskies a day and 80 years of pipe smoking.
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