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The Neath by-election, 1945, was a parliamentary by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Neath in South Wales. Neath was considered a safe seat for the Labour Party and had been held by William Jenkins since the 1922 UK general election. No other candidate had stood in seat at the last general election.〔"Neath Polling To-Day", ''Manchester Guardian'', 15 May 1945〕 Jenkins died on 8 December 1944, but as World War II was still underway, the process of calling a by-election was slow, and the date was ultimately set as 15 May 1945.〔Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson, ''War and the International'' (1986) pp136-140〕 ==Candidates== The Labour Party expected to easily hold the seat, and stood local miner D. J. Williams. Williams was a member of Pontardawe Rural District Council, and the Executive Council of the South Wales Miners' Federation. He had been part of a miners' delegation to the Soviet Union and was known for his opposition to Welsh nationalism.〔M. Stenton and S. Lees, ''Who's Who of British MPs Vol. IV'' (Harvester Press, 1981)〕 Williams was supported by Will Lawther, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, which sponsored his candidature.〔"Labour Holds Neath: Communist Loses Deposit", ''Manchester Guardian'', 17 May 1945〕 There was a truce between the major parties: Labour, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the National Liberal Party. The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), which had considerable strength in South Wales, was not a signatory to the pact, but had undertaken not to contest seats held by the major parties. As a result, the only opposition in by-elections came from independents, minor parties and occasional unofficial party candidates aligned with major parties. Plaid Cymru stood Wynne Samuel, its South Wales organiser. The party's main strengths were in North Wales, and he was not expected to be a strong contender, but the party hoped this would launch a new strategy of winning over industrial workers in the south of the nation.〔"Elections Test Future of Welsh Party", ''The Observer'', 11 February 1945〕 The Trotskyist Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) stood Jock Haston, its General Secretary. This was the first time any Trotskyist organisation had stood a candidate in a British Parliamentary election.〔"(Trotskyism in May 1945: Down with the Churchill Coalition! Labour to Power on a Socialist Programme! )", ''Socialist Appeal'', 15 April 2005〕 The party had only been established the previous year, and Trotskyism had not previously had a base in South Wales.〔 The RCP had been leading supporters of strikes by coal miners which had occurred in the area in 1944, for which efforts some of its members had been imprisoned. Several local miners' lodges had supported their defence, and the RCP had sent a prominent member, John Lawrence, as a full-time organiser for the area, recruiting some activists in Merthyr Tydfil, Llanelli and Swansea.〔 The party stood on a revolutionary internationalist platform, declaring "Our candidate will fight on a platform of uncompromising hostility to the imperialist war, for the breaking of the Coalition, for the overthrow of the Churchill Government and for Labour to take power on a Socialist platform."〔 Their main slogan was "Break the Coalition, Labour to Power".〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Neath by-election, 1945」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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