Extracts from a confidential report from Frederick H. Boland to
Seán Nunan (Dublin)
(Confidential)

In¹ view of his forthcoming visit to London next week,² there are a number of recent developments in connection with the Anti-Partition League of which the Minister may wish to be aware.

2. I gather, from a hint dropped by himself and statements made by him to others, that Hugh Delargy³ is anxious to resume his former active association with the League and to run for the National Presidency of the League at the next Annual Congress. Delargy held this post before, of course, but resigned from it when the Executive decided, at its special meeting in October, 1949, to urge Irish voters in this country to vote against members of the Labour Party who had supported the Ireland Bill. Although Delargy himself voted against the Bill, his attitude in the debate at Committee stage had aroused some criticism within the League and an intrigue, led by Harry McHugh⁴ and Scott Maunsell,⁵ had been set on foot to put him out of the National Presidency. Although Delargy would have probably won if the matter had come to a ‘show down’, he anticipated the verdict of the Annual Conference by resigning the Presidency.
3. What precisely is behind Delargy’s desire to resume an active role within the League is not very obvious. Some of those familiar with the situation say that, now that Herbert Morrison is completely discredited even within his own Party, the principal fear which prompted Delargy to retire from the League has been removed. The suggestion is also made that Delargy’s new intention is not wholly disinterested but that, now that the attention of the parties here is focused on the Irish vote to a somewhat greater extent than before, he reckons that the position of National President of the Anti-Partition League would enhance his personal importance in his own Party and, indeed, in the House. Although Delargy is personally popular, these doubts about his sincerity and disinterestedness are strangely frequent. Tadhg Feehan⁶ told me that, during his relatively short period at Westminster, Anthony Mulvey⁷ came to have great suspicions of Delargy on these scores and rated him considerably lower than some non-Irish members of the Labour Party (including Michael Foot and Desmond Donnelly)⁸ in the sincerity of his attachment to the Anti-Partition cause.
4. It is supremely important, of course, that the Embassy should hold itself completely aloof from all movements within the League concerned with the filling of the principal offices. There is no sphere in which strong feelings within the League are so apt to be aroused or in which any suggestion of official interference would be more sharply resented. Subject to this, my feeling – for your own confidential information – is that some change in the principal offices of the League is desirable and overdue. I have come to doubt Frank Shortt’s⁹ efficiency as National President and, although they are undoubtedly sincere and devoted, Havekin¹⁰ and Lyons,¹¹ who work very closely together in Manchester, have unwittingly given the impression throughout the Organisation that they regard their respective offices as in some way proprietary to themselves. From one point of view therefore some infusion of new blood in the higher offices of the League would undoubtedly be an advantage. But whether Hugh Delargy is a suitable candidate for the Presidency or any other National Office is more open to doubt. His candidature would, undoubtedly, provoke sharp dissention within the League between those who are adherents of the Labour Party and those who feel that the League should stay completely aloof from British Party politics, confining itself to opposing those who have shown themselves definitely antagonistic to the ending of Partition. There is no doubt but that, if Hugh Delargy became National President, the League would tend to become more closely identified with the Labour Party than before and this is more liable to happen now than in the past, because the Liverpool area (the principal anti-Labour element) has been expelled from the League since McHugh put forward his candidature in Bootle last October.

[matter omitted]

6. The foregoing developments must be viewed in the light of the current pre-occupation of the political Parties here with the question of the Irish vote in this country. I have seen a number of signs in different directions that this pre-occupation is greater now than it was before. Several people to whom I have spoken regard the choice of candidates for the pending by-election in South East Leeds, where there is a big Irish vote, as highly indicative in this connection. All three Parties have chosen as candidates Catholics with Irish names. It is known that Transport House is anxious to find a seat for Mr. Hardman,¹² who was Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Education, and lost his seat at the last election. Mr. Hardman, like Mr. Haire,¹³ made himself particularly obnoxious to our people by his frankly Unionist attitude whenever the question of Partition was raised. Our friends derive particular satisfaction from the knowledge that the claim which he put forward for the seat in South East Leeds (where there is a Labour majority of over 8,000) was rejected by the Party Executive on the ground of his unacceptability to Irish voters in the Division.