Union of Democratic Control

The Union of Democratic Control was a British pressure group formed in 1914 to press for a more responsive foreign policy. While not a pacifist organization, it was opposed to military influence in government.

World War I

The impetus for the formation of the UDC was the outbreak of the First World War, which its founders saw as having resulted from largely secret international understandings which were not subject to democratic overview. The principal founders were Charles P. Trevelyan, a Liberal government minister who had resigned his post in opposition to the declaration of war, and Ramsay MacDonald who resigned as Chairman of the Labour Party when it supported the government's war budget. Also taking a key role in setting up the Union were author Norman Angell and journalist E. D. Morel. While non-partisan, the UDC was dominated by the left-wing of the Liberal and Labour Parties.

The Union did not call for an immediate end to the war but for a full examination of the war aims in public and by Parliament. It did strongly oppose conscription and wartime censorship along with other restrictions on civil liberties. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) provided general backing and most of the funds for the Union came from wealthy Quakers. There were also close links between the Union and the supporters of women's suffrage.

By 1917 the UDC had more than a hundred local branches and 10,000 individual members; it also had affiliations from organisations which represented 650,000 more. It became increasingly influential in the Labour Party, to which its members increasingly graduated due to the continued support for the war from the Liberals.

ubsequent activity

At the end of the war, no thought was given to disbanding the Union and it continued to be active through the 1920s. In the first Labour government in 1924, fifteen Government ministers were members of the UDC.

As time went on, the UDC became more supportive of outright pacifism and Arthur Ponsonby published his pacifist statement "Now is the Time" in 1925 under UDC sponsorship. Ponsonby also started a petition of those who "refuse to support or render war service to any government which resorts to arms", and in 1928 published "Falsehood in Wartime" which claimed that public opinion was invariably peaceful unless roused by propaganda.

In the 1930s the UDC was led by Dorothy Woodman who reshaped it as an anti-fascist research and propaganda campaigning group. Membership was on a steep decline by this point and while the Union continued to exist in some form until the 1960s it had very little influence.

External links

* [http://archives.lse.ac.uk/dserve.exe?dsqServer=lib-4.lse.ac.uk&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=Overview.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo='morel') Catalogue of the Edmund Morel papers] at the [http://www.lse.ac.uk/library/archive/Default.htm Archives Division] of the London School of Economics
* [http://www.hull.ac.uk/arc/downloads/DDCcatalogue.pdf Hull University Archives (PDF)]