Editing Ramsay MacDonald (section)

=== 1920–1923 ===
MacDonald stood for Parliament in the [[1921 Woolwich East by-election]] and lost. His opponent, [[Robert Gee|Captain Robert Gee]], had been awarded the [[Victoria Cross]] at [[Battle of Cambrai (1917)|Cambrai]]; MacDonald tried to counter this by having ex-soldiers appear on his platforms. MacDonald also promised to pressure the government into converting the [[Royal Arsenal|Woolwich Arsenal]] to civilian use.{{sfn|Marquand|1977|p=273}} Horatio Bottomley intervened in the by-election, opposing MacDonald's election because of his anti-war record.{{sfn|Marquand|1977|p=274}} Bottomley's influence may have been decisive in MacDonald's failure to be elected as there were under 700 votes difference between Gee and MacDonald.{{sfn|Marquand|1977|pp=274–275}}

In 1922, MacDonald was returned to the House as MP for [[Aberavon (UK Parliament constituency)|Aberavon]] in [[Wales]], with a vote of 14,318 against 11,111 and 5,328 for his main opponents. His rehabilitation was complete; the Labour ''New Leader'' magazine opined that his election was, "enough in itself to transform our position in the House. We have once more a voice which must be heard".{{sfn|Marquand|1977|p=283}}
By now, the party was reunited and MacDonald was [[1922 Labour Party leadership election (UK)|re-elected as Leader]]. Historian [[Kenneth O. Morgan]] examines his newfound stature:
: as dissolution set in with the Lloyd George coalition in 1921–22, and unemployment mounted,  MacDonald stood out as the leader of a new kind of broad-based left. His opposition to the war had given him a new charisma. More than anyone else in public life, he symbolised peace and internationalism, decency and social change.... [He] had become The voice of conscience.<ref>Kenneth Morgan (1987) pp. 44–45</ref>

At the [[1922 United Kingdom general election|1922 election]], Labour replaced the Liberals as the main opposition party to the Conservative government of [[Stanley Baldwin]], making MacDonald [[Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom)|Leader of the Opposition]]. By now, he had moved away from the Labour left and abandoned the socialism of his youth: he strongly opposed the wave of radicalism that swept through the labour movement in the wake of the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]] and became a determined enemy of Communism. Unlike the [[French Section of the Workers' International]] and the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]], the Labour Party did not split and the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] remained small and isolated.

In 1922, MacDonald visited [[Mandatory Palestine|Palestine]].<ref name="David Cesarani 2006">David Cesarani. "Anti-Zionism in Britain, 1922–2002: Continuities and Discontinuities" The Journal of Israeli History 25.1 (2006): 141</ref> In a later account of his visit, he contrasted [[Zionist]] pioneers with 'the rich plutocratic Jew'.<ref name="David Cesarani 2006"/> MacDonald believed the latter "was the true economic materialist. He is the person whose views upon life make one anti-Semitic. He has no country, no kindred. Whether as a sweater or a financier, he is an exploiter of everything he can squeeze. He is behind every evil that Governments do, and his political authority, always exercised in the dark, is greater than that of Parliamentary majorities. He is the keenest of brains and the bluntest of consciences. He detests Zionism because it revives the idealism of his race, and has political implications which threaten his economic interests."<ref name="David Cesarani 2006"/>

MacDonald became noted for "woolly" rhetoric such as the occasion at the [[Labour Party Conference]] of 1930 at [[Llandudno]] when he appeared to imply [[Unemployment in the United Kingdom|unemployment]] could be solved by encouraging the jobless to return to the fields "where they till and they grow and they sow and they harvest". Equally, there were times when it was unclear what his policies were. There was already some unease in the party about what he would do if Labour was able to form a government.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Neilson|first1=Keith|last2=Otte|first2=T.G.|title=The Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1854–1946|date=2008|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|isbn=978-1134231393|page=175}}</ref>