Hugh Gaitskell

Nationality

United Kingdom

Date of Birth

1906

Date of Death

1963

Political
Preference

Labour Party

Hugh Gaitskell was a British Labour politician. During the Second World War, Gaitskell worked for the Ministry of Economic Warfare that was headed by Hugh Dalton. In 1945, he entered politics when he was elected to parliament for the Labour Party.

In 1950, Gaitskell was appointed as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As such he negotiated British membership of the European Payments Union (EPU), Gaitskell had concerns that some countries might stay in permanent deficit and thus effectively use their neighbours for free borrowing, or conversely that Belgium’s surplus would enable her to suck gold and dollars from Britain. In any case, the British fear was that it would see its dollar reserves depleted because of EPU-membership. For that matter, the British remained reluctant to enter into scheme that entailed some form of currency convertibility. In the end, these British obstacles were overcome by an American guarantee to pay the British the countervalue in dollars for any gold-losses that might result from participation in the EPU.

He was a member of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1956 until 1958. Yet, he spoke out against UK-membership of the European Economic Community (EEC).