Hesitant comrades reviews the response of the British left – including the Labour Party, the Independent Labour Party, the Fabians, the British Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party, the Pankhursts and related feminists, the Communist Party of Great Britain, and the trade unions – to the national revolution in Ireland. The focus is mainly on the period between 1916 and 1921, but there are also sections that reach back to the late-nineteenth century. Aside from bookends on the Easter Rising and the Anglo–Irish Treaty, the approach is thematic, with chapters devoted to the Labour Party, the Trades Union Congress, and the far left ‘alternatives’. The Ulster question, as distinct from the Irish question, looms large in the proceedings, and two chapters deal with the debate on socialism and nationalism in Ireland, and the left in Ulster. The one obvious missing piece in the jigsaw is the Irish Labour Party; a common omission which has usually reflected an Anglo-centric and colonial mindset. In discussing The making of the English working class, E. P. Thompson liked to remind historians that the working class was present at its own making. As we consider the reasons for the post-1916 marginalisation of the Irish left in our decade of centenaries, it’s worth bearing in mind that Irish Labour had a hand in its own unmaking.

Born and raised in Belfast, Geoffrey Bell has already published with Pluto on Northern Ireland, notably The Protestants of Ulster (1976) and Troublesome business: the Labour Party and the Irish question (1982). Based on a Ph.D. Hesitant comrades is a less polemical work, deeper and rounder. Bell’s method is to let events or quotations make the point for him. Of course, these are selected, and the underlying argument is the same as in the earlier volumes. Essentially, Bell’s case is that the mainstream British Labour movement always had an ambiguous attitude towards Ireland. On the one hand it took the view that as a movement for democracy, Labour could not oppose the democratic demand for home rule. On the other, there were many in the movement who qualified that view with a belief that the quest for home rule was deluded as it would not lead to the better government of Ireland or that the Irish did not have the right to things – like armed revolt or separation – which might damage British or imperial interests. Always, there was the hope that the Irish question would just go away. Similarly on Ulster, the prevailing view was that Labour could not endorse partition as the unionists were reactionaries, hand-in-glove with the Tories in opposing the Liberal government’s social reforms, and partition would institutionalise sectarianism in Ulster, if not in Ireland as a whole. At the same time, once the British government supported partition, most Labourites were willing to accept it as inevitable. The ‘alternatives’ were more consistent and forthright in their standpoints, but here too there were a variety of perspectives, ranging from the anti-nationalist Fabians to the anti-imperialist communists and feminists.

Much of the ground has already been covered in bits and pieces here and there, and the thematic format does leave the bones of contention well chewed by the conclusion, but never before has the topic been addressed in so concise, coherent, and comprehensive a form. In particular, Bell undermines the argument, which came into vogue with Marxist revisionism in the 1970s, that the left overlooked, or misunderstood, working-class backing for unionism in Ulster. From James Connolly to Ramsay MacDonald, the left was well aware of it, but decided that forcing the unionists into a united Ireland was the least worst option. One quibble is that Connolly’s analysis of the Ulster question is treated as distinctive and influential, whereas it is more likely that he was reflective of the socialist position.

Unfortunately the production of the book is lacklustre and the text is marred by irritating typos. Ramsay MacDonald is frequently cited as Ramsey MacDonald and Feargus O’Connor as Fergus O’Conner. That aside, the account is very readable and the lucid, jargon-free narrative skips along at a steady pace. Ranging over a wide variety of groups, factions, and socialist theorists, Bell demonstrates a gift for nuance, clarity, and simplicity. Hesitant comrades will be engaging for the generalist and essential for the specialist.