Foreign policy
editTurning his attention to the looming crisis in Europe, he became the Labour Party's spokesman on foreign policy in Parliament. Pacifism had been a strong element in the Labour Party (and other parties as well), but the Spanish Civil War changed that, as the Left moved to support arms for the Republican ("Loyalist") cause. However Dalton was not enthusiastic for the Labour party policy of wanting to intervene in the Spanish Civil War,[1] later stating:
I was far from enthusiastic for the slogan "arms for Spain" if this meant, as some of my friends eagerly did, that we were to supply arms which otherwise we should keep for ourselves, for I was much more conscious than most of my friends of the terrible insufficiency of British armaments against the German danger.[2]
His views were different from those of Attlee, later recalling that before the Second World War he believed:
as Germany and Italy were potential enemies of Britain and Franco was their ally, it was in Britain's interest that Franco should not win the Spanish Civil War. It was on this proposition rather than any extravagant eulogy of the Spanish Government that I based most of my public references to this most tragic struggle.[2]
Yet Dalton admitted he was wrong in this assessment of British interests, stating that "When the Germans overran France in 1940 and reached the Pyrenees, Franco was neutral, and with remarkable skill maintained his neutrality until the end of the war. Hitler respected this and never forced his way through Spain to attack Gibraltar or crossed the Straits into Morocco." and "Hitler would not have respected the neutrality of a Spanish Republican Government. If Franco had lost the Civil War, Hitler would have occupied Spain."[2]
Aided by union votes, Dalton moved the party from semi-pacifism to a policy of armed deterrence and rejection of appeasement. He was a bitter enemy of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.