Labour came to power in 1945 with a commitment to nationalisation and a high degree of public support. Land nationalisation had been Labour Party policy since 1918. However, the Government did not use the opportunity of their victory to bring land into public ownership. This article analyses why the 1945 Labour Government failed to implement this policy. Previous explanations have suggested the omission was due to Labour's revisionist nature and the Government's belief that the measures it did introduce provided adequate control of agriculture. The paper argues that whilst there might be some truth in these interpretations, a more fruitful analysis is that the existence of a closed agricultural policy community prevented the issue being raised. A policy community operates on the basis of certain shared assumptions about policy. Thus land nationalisation was excluded as an issue because it would have provoked controversy and threatened the community when the Government wanted to preserve good relations with the farmers.
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