This is a study of a successful parliamentary campaign led throughout
the 1920s by a
small group of backbench Labour MPs aimed at abolishing the military death
penalty for the offences
of cowardice and desertion. It was sustained in the face of opposition
from the military establishment,
the Conservatives, and finally the House of Lords. The campaigners used
the opportunity afforded
by the requirement on government to pass, annually, an Army Bill, to challenge
the military
establishment's insistence that a capital penalty was essential to
the maintenance of army discipline.
Despite the unwillingness of the 1924 Labour government to confront the
military on this issue, the
reformers persevered, securing some minor, incremental reform before the
coming of the second Labour
government in 1929. The new government was prevailed upon by backbench
pressure to authorize a free
vote in the Commons which approved the abolition of the capital penalty
for cowardice and desertion
in the Army Act of 1930.
