Kim Mackay was an Australian socialist who played an important role in the British Labour Party, Common Wealth Party, and the movement for a federal Europe. His political trajectory highlights the links between the labour movement in Australia and Britain. He is a novel example of a socialist who moved in the opposite direction to the radical pioneers who left England to spread the gospel of labour politics to the United States, Canada and Australia. Mackay’s socialism was forged in Australia and reached maturity in a Britain that was undergoing social and political transformation as a result of the rise of Fascism in Europe and the outbreak of World War II. His most significant contribution to British politics was his advocacy of European federalism at a time when many on the left within the British labour movement were opposed to such a policy. It is argued that Mackay’s particular brand of Australian socialism allowed a greater doctrinal flexibility that remained absent from the politics of his contemporaries on the parliamentary left.  Mackay produced an array of books and pamphlets, but his work merits little attention in the literature on the British Labour Party.

Ronald William Gordon Mackay, commonly known as ‘Kim’, was born in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, on 3 September 1902, the fifth child of Alexander William Gordon Mackay and his wife Mary née Knight. Both parents came from strongly Methodist families. His father was the Irish born governor of Bathurst gaol and his mother was the Tonga-born daughter of J.E. Moulton, who had been a Methodist missionary in the South Pacific. After showing early educational promise, Kim Mackay attended Sydney Grammar School 1915-19 and later the University of Sydney where he gained his LL.B in 1926 and an MA with honours in Education in 1929. He was admitted to the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1926 and worked as a member of the law firm Sly and Russell, in Sydney.  He married Mary Barker Hassall on 21 February 1928 at the chapel of St Paul’s College, the University of Sydney; the marriage produced two children but ended in divorce. While completing his education, he founded the New Outlook, a fortnightly publication of politics and economics. Mackay wrote articles attacking, amongst other things, militarism and the Versailles Treaty.2

Mackay seemed set for an academic career when he gained a part-time post as a lecturer in History at St. Paul’s College (1926-32), but he continued to practice law. However, his greater interest was in the field of economics and he developed a keen mind for business and an acute sense of the problems of political economy. He steadily built up a publication profile beginning with The Industrial Arbitration Act of the Commonwealth of Australia (1928) and Some Aspects of Primary and Secondary Education (1929). In 1932 he helped establish the Australian Institute of Political Science (AIPS). Through this body Mackay argued for reform of the Australian Constitution. The AIPS held numerous summer schools and founded the journal Australian Quarterly. Mackay became an active figure in the Australian labour movement, and after a business trip to Britain, retained links with labour activists that he had met on his visit. He was particularly close to Sir Stafford Cripps and other figures on the Labour left. After some persuasion by Cripps, Mackay arrived in England in 1934, establishing a reputation as a practising lawyer and socialist. He was part of a thriving law firm operating under the name of Oppenheimer, Vandyk, and Mackay. He immediately involved himself in the Labour Party in the Frome division of Somerset.3

His organisational ability was recognised by party notables, when he successfully managed to develop a very active and efficient Labour machine in the constituency. He was selected to fight the seat for the party in the 1935 General Election. He campaigned for a strong League of Nations and an end to conflict between states. His ambition was the creation of a world government based on the principles of the League, which would act as its protective force. He also advocated a socialist programme calling for common ownership of key-industries, land, and the productive resources of the country. The local press appealed for voters to support the government by voting for Mavis Tate, the National Conservative candidate. An editorial in the Somerset Standard, claimed that Mackay was an extremist ‘… he is the terror and despair of even the fastest shorthand writer. But that he is an extremist is proved, not only by his own political utterances, but by the fact that his political debut in England was made under Sir Stafford Cripps, of whom many members of his own party are distinctly afraid’.4 Yet Mackay was a critic of the Soviet Union and the British Communist Party. He came second to the Conservative who took the seat with a slender majority of 994.

In the late 1930s, Mackay became disillusioned with the timidity of the Labour Party and the electoral truce that was agreed at the outbreak of war. He remained close to Cripps who had been expelled in 1939 for advocating a Popular Front. He kept close council with others in the Labour Party through his work as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Fabian Colonial Bureau, which had been established in 1941. With the outbreak of war, Mackay was posted to a position in the Ministry of Aircraft Production. This post took him on a number of trips overseas, including the United States, where he advocated an increase in war production. This direct role in the war effort led Mackay to criticise the electoral truce and the willingness of Labour to conceal its criticisms of Government policy. He resigned from the Labour Party and searched for a left-wing alternative that could harness the popular radicalism that had been generated by concern for a more egalitarian society. Yet Mackay retained his links to the Labour party through his active membership of the Clerical and Administrative Workers’ Union. He was also busy securing his role in the world of business, taking positions on the boards of a number of large firms.

In 1942, he unsuccessfully contested the Llandaff and Barry by-election as an independent socialist spending £1200 of his own money. The vacancy followed the death of Patrick Munro and the 1941 Committee invited Mackay to stand. The 1941 Committee started as a discussion group led by J.B. Priestley. The group merged with Forward March to form the Common Wealth Party.5 The Llandaff and Barry Labour Party also supported Mackay. Explaining his reasons for resigning from the Labour Party to the local press, he argued that the electoral truce must be terminated in order to ensure that the war could be prosecuted more effectively. Nonetheless, there were tensions within the left relating to his candidacy. At a meeting of the Communist Party in Llandaff, Arthur Horner, the south Wales miners’ leader, attacked the role of independents in by-elections claiming that all National Government candidates must be supported. The Communists felt that unity was paramount to maintain maximum production during hostilities.6 The Conservatives used the press to highlight Mackay’s business concerns and distributed a number of leaflets that they hoped would deter Labour voters from supporting such an extravagant candidate.

During the campaign, Mackay espoused his ideas on a new Europe that he hoped would emerge when the war was over. In a letter to the Prime Minister, he claimed that he stood ‘not for a return to a national sovereignty, but for a federation if possible of Western Europe, as a first step towards world peace; the second step is World Federation’.7 The issue of Europe was to be his main political interest throughout his career. His book Federal Europe (1941) was read widely. To Mackay, the dilution of sovereignty in a context of developing federation was an environment that could facilitate socialism. In a letter to the Manchester Guardian in August 1941, he set out his beliefs.

In 1942, he contributed financially to Tom Driberg’s campaign in the Maldon by-election. It was in this context of emerging radicalism expressed through a variety of initiatives that the Common Wealth Party appeared. Mackay had no doubt been attracted to the 1941 Committee’s policy on a federation of European states. Desmond Donnelly, an early supporter of Common Wealth and later a Labour MP, viewed the party retrospectively as a combination of ‘leftist militants and middle class do-gooders’.9 Mackay probably represented both wings; a respected intellectual, independently wealthy, with a commitment to democratic socialism. Richard Acland was the figurehead of the new organisation and it went onto to enjoy electoral success in Eddisbury, Skipton, and Chelmsford. Although Mackay had resigned from the Labour Party because of its stance on the electoral truce, he never lost his commitment to its democratic socialism. He joined Common Wealth in 1943, and as national Chairman, he transformed its chaotic organisation. On arrival, he found that the office staff was largely incompetent. He quickly developed a re-organisation plan. The task was to streamline the internal structure and transform the party from an idealistic pressure group into an efficient electoral machine. He wanted a tightly run organisation that would co-ordinate the various branches of the party to ensure that it could maximise its challenge in by-elections when they arose. Mackay advocated a coherent system of thorough door-to-door canvassing and the development of detailed records.10 This system provided the foundation for what would later be called the ‘Reading system’, which Mackay developed with Ian Mikardo when they were neighbouring MPs for Reading in the early 1950s.

According to Angus Calder, in his thesis on Common Wealth, Mackay had the total support of Acland, but raised the suspicion of others in the party. Acland expressed his belief in Mackay’s abilities in a diary entry in April 1943: ‘Thank God Mackay has come and I can give up worrying about organisation, and get back to my job of propaganda’.11 The newspapers often referred to Common Wealth’s by-election campaign as ‘Acland’s circus’, but the resources and planning that went into the party’s organisation were essentially down to Mackay. Members of the election team were nicknamed ‘Mackay’s Trained Seals’; they took their tactics from a pamphlet that he produced in 1943 titled Common Wealth Election Handbook. In a further publication, Coupon or Free?: Being a Study in Electoral Reform and Representative Government (1943), Mackay promoted his arguments for proportional representation. Throughout the book, he criticised Conservatives, Socialists, and Liberals for failing to reform the undemocratic structures British government.

Mackay might have transformed the organisation of the party, but he was causing tensions within some branches. The London Region was critical of his affluent lifestyle, and felt that he was merely a careerist, who was ultimately set on gaining a prominent position in the Labour Party after the war. This view was reinforced by Mackay’s association with Alan Good, a wealthy businessman, who, along with Acland, supplied the party with the bulk of its finances. Good was a director of numerous firms amassing a six-figure personal fortune by the age of 35. His money was almost solely responsible for bankrolling Mackay’s grand plans for the national office, although Mackay himself personally rented premises he owned in Bloomsbury to the party for a nominal sum.12 Sybil Wingate, a member of Common Wealth’s national committee, claims that factionalism within the party stemmed from the different directions in which individuals wanted to push the organisation. Mackay was convinced that the overtly Marxist posturing associated with Joe Thomas of the London Region, merely led to the restriction of the organisation’s popular appeal. He outlined his reservations concerning Marxism in a revised edition of Federal Europe.

Amongst the prominent figures in the party, Mackay was seen as the most efficient. Wingate felt that others such as Acland and Tom Wintringham were no match for his superior debating skills and powers of persuasion. Mackay saw Common Wealth as a vehicle for socialism, but as only one component of a broad coalition of progressive forces. According to Calder, the three principal figures in Common Wealth viewed the party differently. Acland felt that it was a distinct party. Wintringham saw it as an organisation of different classes working together in a popular front. Mackay felt that it provided a temporary repository for radicalism while the Labour Party adhered to the electoral truce.14 The policies that Mackay had promoted in Common Wealth stayed with him through his years as a Labour MP, notably proportional representation, federalism, devolution, and the abolition of the House of Lords.

Despite the factional criticism that Mackay often faced, he was re-elected chairman in 1944. C.A. Smith, who replaced Mackay after he rejoined the Labour Party, felt that there was a certain resentment on the national committee towards Mackay’s superior organisational and intellectual ability, but remembered him as always sincere: ‘unlike Acland who was a chronic poseur … always thinking of his own image … Mackay was, in my experience frank and business like, easy to get along with. He was rich, lived well, and had some unconventional luxuries of the type that aroused envy masked as disapproval’.15 Attacks on Mackay were just one symptom of the developing factionalism. The party became weakened by attacks from disgruntled members. Eric Troward accused the party of being a communist organisation. Perhaps more damaging was the perception of Fascist involvement. This was difficult to substantiate, but John Beckett of the British Union of Fascists had joined one of the London branches on release from prison.16 Mackay himself came under pressure from the Christian wing of the party, which felt that he was diluting the moral streak of its programme in favour of electoral opportunism. He had already offered to resign from the chairmanship in November 1943, complaining to friends that he was receiving no loyalty or co-operation from other members of the national committee, but was dissuaded from doing so by Wintringham. It was clear to both Acland and Wintringham that Mackay was holding the party together through his organisational expertise.

The idealism that Mackay initially espoused when first joining Common Wealth, was frustrated, when it became clear that the Labour Party was unwilling to accept amalgamation. Mackay worked for a closer link with the Fabians and then the Communist Party, but discussions led to nothing. A more successful partnership was worked out with the Independent Labour Party, who themselves had tried to broker a third way between social democracy and communism since their break with Labour in 1932. The debate on closer links with the Labour Party led to Mackay gradually distancing himself from Common Wealth. In October 1944, Mackay attacked the anit-affilationists and argued that: ‘ Hugh Dalton, Herbert Morrison, Jim Griffiths and others were all better Socialists and more capable leaders than most of the people in Common Wealth’.17 In an attempt to pave the way for Common Wealth affiliation to Labour, Mackay arranged a meeting with Sir Stafford Cripps and Ellen Wilkinson in November. Mackay was told that the only option available to Common Wealth members was to join Labour as individual members. He now worked to convince the more obdurate members of Common Wealth that it was political power that mattered. He grew gradually more impatient with those on the left of the party who wanted autonomy. In the Common Wealth Review, he argued that:

Mackay argued at successive Common Wealth conferences for closer ties with Labour. On numerous occasions, he had stated that the party only existed because the Labour Party was not providing effective opposition to the Government. Nonetheless, until his resignation in 1944, he worked hard for the party in producing propaganda. He envisaged a broad coalition of left forces that would come together to ensure that the Conservative Party was seriously weakened by the end of hostilities.

The party showed no animosity towards Mackay on his departure and he left the Gower Street premises to the party free of rent for a year. All his energies were now directed in working for Labour success in the General Election of 1945. He was selected as a candidate to fight for the constituency of North West Hull, where he successfully gained the seat.

Mackay was a very effective speaker in the House and used his intellectual ability and oratorical skills in defending the policies of the Government. Nonetheless, he remained a critic of the Government’s moderation. Early in 1947 he became a member of the Keep Left group. When he signed the Keep Left pamphlet in 1947, he did so from a third-way position attacking the politics of both the USA and the USSR.

Mackay was a keen advocate of the nationalisation and aligned himself with the left on economic issues. His grasp of economics and the fact that he was managing director of a business that employed 3000 workers strengthened his credibility in debate. However, he directed most of his energies in campaigning for his long-term commitment to a federal Europe. Mackay pressed his colleagues in the House to campaign for a policy of federalism to advance socialist ideals across the globe. He felt that European unity would ensure independence from the superpowers.21 He broke with Conservative federalists when he realised that they merely viewed such a policy as a tool to suppress the Soviet Union.

Federalists across Europe had come together in the European Union of Federalists under the leadership of Winston Churchill in 1946, a body that was superseded two years later by the European Movement. The Labour Party was not as enthusiastic about Europe as other socialists on the continent, much to the dismay of Mackay. He was elected Chairman of the Europe Group of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1947. Crossman and Foot were also members. The group contained over 80 members at its peak. Along with Mackay, John Hynd was Vice-Chairman and Christopher Shawcross was secretary. Divisions soon appeared within the group. The federal issue was difficult for British socialists, as Mackay was to find when he canvassed MPs on the left of the Labour Party. Some felt that it would weaken the Soviet Union and force Europe into a closer alliance with the United States. Others such as Tom Braddock, felt the project would merely perpetuate capitalism and were reluctant to support any initiative that was promoted by the Conservatives.22 Indeed the federalist movement in Britain was a cross-party group consisting of Socialists, Liberals, and Conservatives.

Mackay remained determined to promote the European ideal and the issue dominated his politics. In May 1948, he delivered a lengthy speech on the subject to the Commons.

Throughout 1948 divisions within the Labour Europe Group hardened, on amongst other things, the situation in Eastern Europe, particularly the communist coup in Czechoslovakia. The final straw was when Churchill established the Movement for a United Europe. Mackay faced the wrath of the PLP, when he attended the Interlaken and then the Hague Conference on federation; both meetings were criticised by the party leadership, who felt Churchill and the Conservatives would dominate the agendas. The Europe Group of Labour MPs dissolved, but Mackay continued to campaign for cross party support for federalism.24

The Council of Europe that finally emerged was a toothless body that frustrated the federalists. Mackay wanted to create a Federalist Party to convert the assembly that had been formed by the Council into a legislative body. He again called on old friends such as Alan Good to raise funds for his European project. Mackay himself donated over £1000 and wanted some ‘private Marshall Aid’ to ensure that a federal union would stop communist expansion.25 He also felt that Europe needed to provide an alternative to Soviet communism and American capitalism. The battle for Mackay was between communism and social democracy. This could only be won through a formal policy of federation. He outlined his thinking in a number of speeches throughout his time in the House.

In 1949, Mackay was one of the British delegates to the European Consultative Assembly in Strasbourg. His commitment to the federal ideal ensured that he was the choice of chairman for the European Parliamentary Union. The weakness of the federal movement was that its aims were contested, with only Mackay having little reservation about the policy. The Conservative MP, Duncan Sandys, felt that the initiative should be primarily directed towards inhibiting the Soviet Union. Mackay had worked closely with Sandys, and confided in him his frustration with Labour’s aversion to the European project. In one letter, he told Sandys, that ‘there was such hostility to Europe in the Labour Party that it was becoming a difficult subject to raise’.27 Nonetheless, he later broke with Sandys when it was clear that the Conservatives were not totally committed to the project and merely viewed it as a strategic option to ensure co-operative defence strategies amongst European states. Although Mackay was no fan of the Soviet regime, he did feel that if a federal Europe was to be successful it needed the co-operation of Communist countries. He argued that the Soviet Union should be allowed to enter a federation once the country had embraced democratic ideals.

Within the House of Commons, Mackay increasingly cut a figure concerned with one issue. The Conservative MP, Peter Macdonald referred to him as the ‘fanatical federalist’.28 In 1949, his aims and ambitions for Europe were given more publishing space in his book Western Union in Crisis: Economic Anarchy or Political Union? With the intensification of the Cold War, Mackay felt that federalism would provide the best guarantee against future wars. He held a pragmatic view that ‘the purpose of federation is to bring together people of diverse types in such a way that they can keep their diversity in matters which are not common to all the peoples, and give it up in matters which are’.29 He became impatient with Labour Party suspicions of federalism and argued that they would not be able to deliver socialist policies if they continued to believe that the British economy could withstand the booms and slumps of global capitalism. To Mackay, the improved standard of living that the British were beginning to enjoy could only be maintained if European states merged their resources and planned their economies.

In 1950, Mackay drafted his plan for Europe in which he envisaged a strong Assembly and Committee of Ministers. He called for a transfer of powers covering defence, foreign affairs, and currency. This to Mackay was to be the ultimate aim of federation. He formulated a similar plan for Africa, which was viewed as unworkable by both left and right, although it did gain the support of Fenner Brockway. Rita Hinden felt that the Mackay’s naivety on African matters did not bode well for his policy of federation. As she pointed out to him in a number of letters, Africa contained regions at different stages of development, with many parts of the country having no tradition of democratic politics.30 For all his intellectual training, Mackay’s views on world government were seen in some quarters of the labour movement as rather simplistic, but he remained committed to the project that increasingly came to dominate his political persona.

Following the redistribution of constituencies in 1950, Mackay became the MP for North Reading, where he worked closely with Ian Mikardo. Mikardo later remembered Mackay as a ‘left-wing socialist, a technocrat, generous spender and generally a marvellous man’.31 Mackay contested Reading again in 1951 but was defeated.

Mackay’s allies in the labour movement felt that his political career was hindered by his preoccupation with the European issue. His position within the Labour Party was also perhaps weakened by the criticisms he attracted because of his business interests and lifestyle. In 1953, he retired from the political scene due to ill health. He continued to write articles and books and provided a state of the nation address in his pamphlet Whither Britain. He again saw the only solution to Britain’s economic problems as the need for federalism:

He eventually came to the view that the European issue was not one that should have divided the parties. Ultimately, he optimistically felt that the British people would vote for a federal Europe in a referendum.33 

Mackay enjoyed the good life and was a committed socialist with brilliant organisational skills. As a wealthy individual, he was not opposed to people making money, but supported high taxes to support social services. Mackay appeared prosperous and self-confident with his silvery grey hair and his intellectual ability to talk at length on many subjects. His life was largely focused on politics although he did find time for the odd game of golf and a drink in the Reform Club. He had married again on 15 August 1946, 28-year-old Doreen Mary Armstrong. A series of heart attacks eventually led to his death on 15 January 1960. Mackay left an estate valued at £7449 19s. 1d. He was survived by his wife and the son and daughter from his first marriage.

Mackay was the leading figure in the first generation of European federalists within the Labour Party. His interest in economics and his experiences in both Australia and the USA convinced him of the viability of a federal system of government that would reduce the power of the nation state and therefore avert future wars. His preoccupation with the viability of the European project was seen by some of his contemporaries as naïve, but was understandable in the context of the rise of Fascism and the conflicts between East and West in the post-war period. Through his writings and speeches Mackay emerges as a mixture of the pragmatic and the utopian. As an Australian he did not carry the baggage of some of his contemporaries on the British left concerning cross-party alliances and an impulsive anti-European mentality. His belief in European federalism was no doubt influenced by his commitment to the Australian system of government. In essence, Mackay was an Australian socialist who had to develop a position within the confines of British Labourism. He remains one of the few examples within labour history of an outsider importing a particular brand of Australian socialism into British political culture.