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The war and the Daily Worker
During World War II, the Morning Star’s predecessor the Daily Worker was banned for its criticisms of the government. Here PHIL KATZ looks at the story of its ban – and how it was resisted and overturned
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Daily Worker banned
The TUC met in Southport in 1940, but denied the Daily Worker press credentials. This encouraged the government to act against the only voice in the press that was critical of is role. Party member John Mason was interned without charge as a warning to all. Police raids on homes were stepped up. Requests were made by police to employers to sack known activists.
The party leadership encouraged a revolutionary perspective on the question of legality. It was to be enjoyed and used for as long as it lasted. On January 21 1941, just nine days after the People's Convention, the Daily Worker was suppressed by long-time adversary Labour Home Secretary Herbert Morrison, using defence regulation 2D, which made it illegal “systematically to publish matter calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war.” The party challenged the ban in the High Court. Ironically the High Court lifted the suppression on the movement of its machinery, but the decision came five days after the presses were destroyed in a bombing inferno.
At the defence factory Napiers in north west London, workers clocked in an hour late in protest at suppression of their paper. In its place Daily Worker Leagues appeared, which published a regular Industrial and General Information Bulletin, staffed by former employees of the Daily Worker. The Fighting Fund was kept going. Communists could not be outlawed so easily.
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