P.S. Why didn't Rab Butler become Prime Minister in October 1963?

In a post-script to my two-part series on the most dramatic leadership selection since the war, I look at one of the trickiest questions about the whole saga.

This free post asks one of the great, and perhaps never truly answered, questions of the 1963 Conservative leadership selection: why Rab Butler, almost universally included in lists of the ‘best prime minister we never had’, failed to seize the crown for himself. For background, you can read the two-part series on the leadership crisis here and here.

Rab Butler was well placed to reach the zenith of British politics when Harold Macmillan resigned in October 1963. He had been chancellor of the exchequer (1951-55), home secretary (1957-62) and was Macmillan’s de facto deputy, in charge during the prime minister’s stint in hospital. Butler also had a significant following within the senior ranks of the Conservative party. As The Times noted the day Macmillan’s departure became known, ‘Mr Butler can no doubt be sure of a majority inside the Cabinet, where the main initiative must now be taken.’ In 1957, when Anthony Eden resigned, the votes of the cabinet had been the principal factor in determining who would be prime minister; if they would play the same role again, it seemed the role was Butler’s for the taking.

Butler’s problems began with the very timing of Macmillan’s announcement: as Conservative activists were meeting in Blackpool for the annual party conference. In the crucible of the grassroots’ gathering candidates would be judged by their reception from the party’s members - ‘democracy by decibels,’ as Butler labelled it in his memoirs. By announcing his resignation when he did, Macmillan handed the early momentum to the candidates with the greatest support among the party faithful. This was widely expected to benefit the former party chairman and hereditary peer Viscount Hailsham - and harm Butler.

Already on the back foot, Butler sought to gain the initiative at Blackpool by appearing as the leader-in-waiting. Upon arriving at the Lancashire resort he took up residence in the prime minister's vacant suite at the Imperial Hotel. Next, he sought to acquire Macmillan’s speaking slot at the Saturday rally which would close the conference. Butler was convinced that speaking in the prime minister’s place was make-or-break for his prospects and demonstrated a ‘firmness bordering on stubbornness’ in securing the prestigious place on the agenda. It worked, then backfired. Edward Heath remembered Butler’s speech as ‘monotonous and ineffective.’ In the crucial early days after Macmillan’s resignation was announced, Butler failed to achieve the momentum of a winning candidate.

Butler’s faltering conference simply added to his problems, chief among which was that Macmillan simply did not think Butler was up to the job. Under the consultation mechanism devised by Macmillan, the cabinet, MPs, peers and party activists would all be consulted on who should, and should not, lead the party. Their views would then be fed back to Macmillan, who reserved the right to interpret them, before he informed the Queen of who he believed should take the helm. With Macmillan’s role the essential one, his view that ‘Butler w[oul]d be fatal,’ as he wrote in his diary in early October, was damning. Indeed, many of Butler’s greatest supporters believed that, ‘from the first day of his premiership to the last, Macmillan was determined that Butler, although incomparably the best qualified of the contenders, should not succeed him.’

And so, on 18th October 1963 Macmillan wrote to the Queen to formally resign his office. Whilst the consultations had proved both controversial and inconclusive, when asked who she should invite to form her next government Macmillan advised the Queen to send for the foreign secretary, the Earl of Home. It appeared that Butler had been thwarted. Yet Butler’s greatest opportunity to assert his claim to the leadership was yet to come. After the Queen invited Home to form a government, he asked for time to consult his cabinet colleagues. Home knew that he needed a critical mass of senior ministers in order to form a viable administration - he also knew he needed Butler. Martin Charteris, the Queen’s private secretary, later confirmed that Butler was in the driving seat: ‘Alec could not form a government unless Rab agreed to serve, and if not, the Queen would have had to call for Rab.’

Butler may not have known quite how powerful he alone was, but he did know he had significant support from senior colleagues who believed Home’s elevation to the premiership would be a mistake. When the news of Home’s impending appointment first leaked, a cabal of ministers - including Enoch Powell, Iain Macleod and Reginald Maudling - gathered to try and prevent the appointment. Hailsham, who was in touch remotely, summed up their feelings when he told Powell, ‘This is a calamity… it would be disastrous for the country as well as the party.’ They were all prepared to back Butler. Hailsham believed they were handing Butler the premiership ‘on a plate.’ Other metaphors were available: ‘We have placed the golden ball in Rab’s lap,’ commented Macleod, whilst Powell opted for the more graphic description of a loaded revolver. All Butler had to do, believed the rebels, was pull the trigger and he could end Home’s premiership before it had even begun. More importantly, he could take Home’s place as prime minister.

After Home returned from the Palace to begin his consultations, Butler went to visit him in Number 10, the first of three such visits that day. Butler’s supporters sought to stiffen his resolve: ‘aut Caesar, aut nihil,’ a backbench supporter told Rab - if not Caesar, nothing. Yet with each visit it was becoming more evident that Butler’s ‘strong fatalistic streak,’ which feared he would never become prime minister, was coming to the fore. He eventually buckled and agreed to serve in Home’s government as foreign secretary. The following day, with the key endorsement secured, Home kissed hands on his formal appointment as prime minister.

Why didn’t Butler assert his case at this critical moment? Historians are divided, but perhaps the most plausible explanation is that he simply didn’t believe he commanded sufficient support in the party, especially among backbench Conservative MPs. Macmillan speculated this might be the case when he wrote in his diary prior to resigning that Butler would ‘naturally (if I resign) accept the premiership if there was a general consensus for him. But he doesn’t want another unsuccessful bid.’ Butler had also previously been told by John Morrison, chairman of the 1922 committee, that, ‘the chaps won’t have you.’ Without the broad support of his colleagues, Butler’s intransigence in the face of Macmillan’s recommendation and the Queen’s invitation to Home would have risked splitting the party he had served in Parliament since the 1920s. Butler himself said that, ‘The story of Sir Robert Peel splitting the Tory Party was for me the supremely unforgettable political lesson of history… I could never do the same thing in the twentieth century under any circumstances.’

Despite not becoming prime minister, Rab Butler led one of the most distinguished lives of any politician in the last century. ‘It is no good thinking there is no life left if one is not elected Pope,’ he once said - and surely that is right. Yet on some level, he clearly regretted his lack of zeal in pursuit of the premiership. Years later he asked former minister John Boyd-Carpenter ‘Do you think if I stood firm in 1963 I would have been prime minister?’ Boyd-Carpenter told him he did. ‘I think so, too,’ said Butler, with a sigh.

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