Evidence Against a Consensus.

Labour divided on nuclear weapons: Bevanites wanted unilateral nuclear disarment, whilst Gaitskellites wanted to keep nuclear weapons, because they believed the public would never support nuclear disarment during the Cold War. Many Labour MPs were apart of the CND, though Bevan himself in 1957 said that, “it would send a British Foreign Secretary naked into the conference chamber”. Many of the Conservative Party were reluctant to have US missiles on British soil (Holy Loch, Scotland)

Conservative governments before 1960 were keen to defeat nationalist revolts and to maintain control over…