Norway Debate
The Norway Debate, sometimes called the Narvik Debate, was a momentous debate in the British House of Commons from 7 to 9 May 1940, during the Second World War. The official title of the debate, as held in the Hansard parliamentary archive, is Conduct of the War. The debate was initiated by an adjournment motion enabling the Commons to freely discuss the progress of the Norwegian campaign. The debate quickly brought to a head widespread dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war by Neville Chamberlain's government.
At the end of the second day, there was a division of the House for the members to hold a no confidence motion.[a] The vote was won by the government but by a drastically reduced majority. That led on 10 May to Chamberlain resigning as prime minister and the replacement of his war ministry by a broadly based coalition government, which, under Winston Churchill governed the United Kingdom until after the end of the war in Europe in May 1945.
Chamberlain's government was criticised not only by the Opposition but also by respected members of his own Conservative Party. The Opposition forced the vote of no confidence, in which over a quarter of Conservative members voted with the Opposition or abstained, despite a three-line whip. There were calls for national unity to be established by formation of an all-party coalition but it was not possible for Chamberlain to reach agreement with the opposition Labour and Liberal parties. They refused to serve under him, although they were willing to accept another Conservative as prime minister. After Chamberlain resigned as prime minister (he remained Conservative Party leader until October 1940), they agreed to serve under Churchill.
7 May: first day of the debate[edit]
Preamble and other business[edit]
The Commons sitting on Tuesday, 7 May 1940, began at 14:45 with Speaker Edward FitzRoy in the Chair.[8] There followed some private business matters and numerous oral answers to questions raised, many of those being about the British Army.[9]
With these matters completed, the debate on the Norwegian campaign began with a routine adjournment motion (i.e., "that this house do now adjourn"). Under Westminster rules, in debates like this which are held to allow for wide-ranging discussion of a variety of topics, the issue is not usually put to a vote.
At 15:48, Captain David Margesson, the Government Chief Whip, made the adjournment motion. The House proceeded to openly discuss "Conduct of the War", specifically the progress of the Norwegian campaign, and Chamberlain rose to make his opening statement.[10]
8 May: second day and division[edit]
Morrison: "We must divide the House"[edit]
It is generally understood that Labour did not intend a division before the debate began but Attlee, after hearing the speeches by Keyes and Amery, realised that discontent within Tory ranks was far deeper than they had thought. A meeting of the party's Parliamentary Executive was held on Wednesday morning and Attlee proposed forcing a division at the end of the debate that day. There were a handful of dissenters, including Hugh Dalton, but they were outvoted at a second meeting later on.[54]
As a result, when Herbert Morrison reopened the debate just after 16:00, he announced that:[55]
9 May: third day and conclusion[edit]
The debate continued into a third day but, with the division having been held at the end of the second day, the final day was really a matter of wrapping up. Starting at 15:18, there were only four speakers and the last of them was Lloyd George who spoke mostly about his own time as prime minister in the First World War and at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. He concluded by blaming the democracies for not carrying out the pledges made at that time with the result that Nazism had arisen in Germany. When he finished, shortly before 16:00, the question "that this House do now adjourn" was raised and agreed to, thus concluding the Norway Debate.[91]
Place in parliamentary culture[edit]
The Norway debate is regarded as a high point in British parliamentary history, coming as it did at a time when Great Britain faced its gravest danger. The former prime minister, David Lloyd George, said the debate was the most momentous in the history of Parliament. The future prime minister, Harold Macmillan, believed that the debate changed British history, perhaps world history.[97]
In his biography of Churchill, Roy Jenkins describes the debate as "by a clear head both the most dramatic and the most far-reaching in its consequences of any parliamentary debate of the twentieth century".[98] He compares it with "its nineteenth-century rivals" (e.g., the Don Pacifico debate of 1850) and concludes that "even more followed from the 1940 debate" as it transformed the history of the next five years.[98]
Andrew Marr wrote that the debate was "one of the greatest parliamentary moments ever and little about it was inevitable". The plotters against Chamberlain succeeded despite being deprived of their natural leader, since Churchill was in the cabinet and obliged to defend it.[99] Marr notes the irony of Amery's closing words which were originally directed against Parliament by Cromwell, who was speaking for military dictatorship.[100]
When asked to choose the most historic and memorable speech for a volume commemorating the centenary of Hansard as an official report of the House of Commons, former Speaker Betty Boothroyd chose Amery's speech in the debate, "Amery, by elevating patriotism above party, showed the backbencher's power to help change the course of history".[101]