After Ramsay MacDonald's death, the group continued in existence under his son Malcolm until it was wound up on the eve of the 1945 general election; its newsletter ceased publication two years later.
[6] Frank Markham (MacDonald's Parliamentary Private Secretary) and the junior minister Earl De La Warr set up a National Labour Committee to run the election.
[7] MacDonald himself tried to intervene and on the day after the election was announced complained that Attorney-General Sir William Jowitt had been forced out of Preston and the Conservatives could not find a local association willing to accept him.
In December, MacDonald's private secretary Herbert Usher wrote a long memorandum asking key questions about what type of ongoing organisation was needed.
However, Snowden rejected an invitation from Clifford Allen to write for the News-Letter, replying scathingly and declaring that "I really do not understand this National Labour Party".
When Snowden resigned from the government in opposition to the protectionist outcome of the Ottawa Conference in September 1932, he declared that he no longer had any party allegiance.
All that Stonehaven would offer was Nottingham South, where the Conservative Association might be persuaded to support Jowitt if the sitting National Labour member George Wilfrid Holford Knight stood down.
He had tried, but the Wednesbury Conservative Association were obdurate in refusing to have a National Labour candidate, which would mean handing over their organisation and funding the campaign.
MacDonald may have considered resigning, but he decided only to refuse to send a message of support to the Conservative, who ended up losing the seat to Labour anyway.
[13] In its publicity, National Labour was concerned to stress that although Parliament was heavily dominated by the Conservatives, the cabinet was much more evenly balanced between the parties.
[14] In 1933, a local electoral pact was agreed in Finsbury between National Labour and the Municipal Reform Party in advance of the 1934 London County Council election.
MacDonald contributed a preface in which he argued that the Labour opposition "is as little guided by Socialist opinion and inspired by the fine human spirit of our British Socialism as any other political party of pure expediency striving for a majority".
[21] MacDonald remained Prime Minister as the head of a coalition government until June 1935, when he gave way to Stanley Baldwin and became instead Lord President of the Council.
[22] When Ramsay MacDonald's son, Malcolm, fought the Ross and Cromarty by-election of 1936, he found himself opposed by Randolph Churchill standing as a Conservative and arguing that 'National Labour' was a "sham device" with no real support.
[27] Malcolm MacDonald took the leadership of the group in Parliament and National Labour members retained office—the party issued a declaration of support for Neville Chamberlain over the Munich Agreement.
[29] When Germany invaded the whole of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, an editorial called for "a Government of national concentration" which would have to include "the trusted leaders of the trade unions and the Opposition parties".
[30] A Parliamentary motion from Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill calling for a National government "on the widest possible basis" was given support from the News-Letter in the following issue.
[31] In the run-up to an expected general election in autumn 1939, several National Labour candidates were adopted and the party attracted some high-profile figures to defect to it (including former MP Michael Marcus).
Malcolm Macdonald chose not to defend his seat and retired from front-line politics though was later appointed as High Commissioner to India and Governor of Kenya.
Former National Labour MP Kenneth Lindsay was re-elected as an independent after moving constituencies from Kilmarnock to Combined English Universities.