On 24 August 1939, the House of Commons was recalled from its summer recess to hear the government’s response to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and pass the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act – legislation that granted the government broad authority in response to the imminent threat of war.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was unveiled and signed on 23 August. After the annexation of Austria (Anschluss) and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the pact effectively neutralised the risk of a Soviet resistance to a German invasion of Poland. In so doing, it made a wider European conflict all but inevitable.

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Addressing the commons on 24 August, the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, referred to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as a “bombshell”. He announced the government’s intention to pass an emergency powers bill through all its legislative stages in a single day.

Chamberlain told the House that the “international position has steadily deteriorated until today we find ourselves confronted with the imminent peril of war.”

He pointed to a pattern of dishonest German aggression, which had repeatedly manufactured the case for aggression. Referring to attacks on Poland in the German press, Chamberlain said he could not help “being struck by the fact that they bear a strong resemblance to similar allegations that were made last year in respect of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia.”

He described the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as “a surprise” to the government “and a surprise of a very unpleasant character”. The prime minister was plain that Britain could soon “find ourselves forced to embark upon a struggle which is bound to be fraught with suffering and misery for all man kind and the end of which no man can foresee”.

Arthur Greenwood, responding for the Labour Party, declared: “His statement was one of the utmost gravity. The war clouds are gathering… A terrible and terrifying responsibility lies on the shoulders of him that lets loose the hounds of war.”

George Lansbury, the pacifist former Labour leader, refused to accept that war was now inevitable. He called for peace conference “without any conditions”.

The anti-appeasement MPs, notably Anthony Eden, Leo Amery and Aneurin Bevan, spoke of their frustration as to the government’s policy to this point. Ellen Wilkinson, the Labour MP for Jarrow, said she could not “enter into this general atmosphere of forgive and forget as regards the present prime minister.”

Willie Gallacher, the Communist Party of Great Britain MP for West Fife, defended the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. “I declare here that the non-aggression pact does not in any way interfere with the Anglo-Soviet pact of mutual assistance”, he stated.

Conservative MP Quintin Hogg responded: “The Communist party is the fifth column.”

These comments were delivered in a “general debate” on the programme motion, tabled by Chamberlain, for the consideration of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Bill. The motion was agreed by 427 votes to four. Lansbury was among the dissenters.

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The Emergency Powers (Defence) Bill was introduced by the home secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare.

Hoare described its measures as “very wide, very drastic and very comprehensive”.

The long title of the bill stated its aim as “to confer on His Majesty certain powers which it is expedient that His Majesty should be enabled to exercise in the present emergency; and to make further provision for purposes connected with the defence of the realm.”

It was designed to empower the government to enact ‘defence regulations’, created by Orders in Council – decrees issued by the sovereign on the advice of senior politicians (King-in-Council).

The act therefore amounted to a considerable extension of executive power.

Section 1 of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939 stated: “Subject to the provisions of this section, His Majesty may by Order in Council make such Regulations (in this Act referred to as “Defence Regulations”) as appear to him to be necessary or expedient for securing the public safety, the defence of the realm, the maintenance of public order and the efficient prosecution of any war His Majesty may be engaged, and for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community.”

These powers ultimately provided the legal basis for the requisition of property, the control of industry, widespread censorship, as well as the detention of individuals – the imposition, effectively, of ‘martial law’.

Hoare said it was essential that “the government, not this government in particular but any British government, must be armed with emergency powers.”

He warned of possible future issues if ministers left “gaps”, stating: “On that account the powers asked for in the bill are wide, comprehensive and flexible.”

He concluded: “I appeal to the House, in the crisis through which we are passing, to give the government these powers and to give them expeditiously…

“I ask that this bill should go through with no undue delay, and that we should make it clear to the world that we are prepared to arm ourselves with powers to meet any emergency, and that if for the time being we are setting in abeyance the liberties and privileges that we have prized so much in the past, we set them aside, not as a result of any dictation, but as an act of our own volition, and as an insurance that in setting them aside for a short time we shall retain them permanently in the future.”

Greenwood stated that the Labour Party remained a “little cautious and a little suspicious” about the nature of the legislation, referring to the “good many incipient dictators on the other side of the House”.

But he, alongside Liberal Party leader, Sir Archibald Sinclair, pledged his qualified support.

During the bill’s short committee stage, William Wedgwood Benn, the Labour MP for Manchester Gorton (and father of Tony), moved an amendment to require an affirmative resolution from the House for regulations 28 days after their introduction.

“There is nothing in the bill which was not in the resolution passed in the Reichstag in 1933”, he told the House – a reference to Hitler’s Enabling Act. “Let us at any rate retain this vestige of parliamentary democracy for which we are just about to ask others to fight”.

Hoare rejected the amendment, saying that if the bill passed onto “the statute book tonight, it will have been passed not as the act of a dictator, but by the general wish of both Houses of Parliament.”

The bill ultimately passed the commons unamended and without need for a division. After journeying through the Lords, the bill received royal assent shortly after 22:00 on 24 August 1939.

On 1 September 1939, German forces started their invasion of Poland.

On 3 September 1939, King George VI declared war on Germany.

On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east.

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The resulting act formed the legislative foundation for the entire home front war effort, such as the blackout, rationing, censorship and the Defence Regulation 18B.

This 18B regulation provided for the internment of individuals suspected of being Nazi sympathisers, suspending their right to habeas corpus. Sir Oswald Mosley and his wife Lady Diana Mosley were both interned under 18B, as well as other members of the British Union of Fascists (BUF).

The regulation stated that if the secretary of state “has reasonable cause to believe any person to be of hostile origin or associations or to have been recently concerned in acts prejudicial to the public safety or the defence of the realm or in the preparation or instigation of such acts and that by reason thereof it is necessary to exercise control over him, he may make an order against that person directing that he be detained.”

A group of Labour and Liberal MPs, led by Dingle Foot, attempted to have the defence regulations annulled on 31 October 1939. Addressing the House, Foot described aspects of the regulations as showing “Nazi tendencies”.

Archibald Maule Ramsay, a vehement antisemite, was the only MP to be interned under Defence Regulation 18B.

On 9 May 1940, Ramsay asked the home secretary if he could give “an assurance that care will be taken, both in the administration of the present regulations and in framing revised regulations, that a distinction is made between antisemitism and pro-Nazism?”

John Anderson, the home secretary, delivered a response that Ramsay deemed to be unsatisfactory. And so he sought to clarify.

He asked Anderson, “in view of the fact that he seems to be somewhat confused on the point, will he assure the House that he refuses to be stampeded into identifying the two things by a ramp in our Jew-ridden press?”

On 23 May 1940, Ramsay was arrested and lodged in Brixton Prison on an order under Regulation 18B.

The House of Commons committee on privileges, after an appeal by Ramsay, ruled that his internment was not a breach of the privilege of parliament. Ramsay stated his case to the committee for fifty minutes, before being taken back to prison under the watch of the serjeant at arms of the House of Commons.

Lord Marley said in the House of Lords that Ramsay was Hitler’s chosen Gauleiter (regional leader) for Scotland.

He told the House: “I personally am very glad that the government have seen fit to put under lock and key temporarily until trial takes place… [Ramsay] who I understand is nominated as Gauleiter of Scotland.”

During that same debate, Lord Newton contested the view that the BUF consisted of “enemies of the state”.

He added: “I believe they have been led away by silly ideas about the beauty of totalitarianism and so forth, but I cannot believe they would, in an emergency, act against this country, and I should be prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt in most cases.”

He identified Communists as the “really dangerous people.”

He said: “The real danger in this country consists of the Communists. The Communists are represented by a paper called the Daily Worker.”

Newton responded: “In this House we always listen with tremendous interest to… Lord Newton, because he is always amusing, always interesting, and seldom right.

“In this case I am quite certain he is wrong in supposing that the Fascists – in other words the Nazis – are not dangerous.”

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The Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, initially valid for one year, was renewed annually throughout the war. The regulations therein were periodically revised.

The powers were also extended beyond the war. The Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act 1959 repealed most, but not all, of the regulations.

Regulation 6 empowered the government to employ soldiers “in agricultural work or in other work, being urgent work of national importance”, was made permanent by the Emergency Powers Act 1964.