Did MacDonald's socialism encourage naval compromise?

Did American negotiators think Ramsay MacDonald's socialism made him more willing to compromise British naval strength?

They knew his socialist politics favored peace and lower defence spending, but they also saw him as constrained by a divided party, coalition partners, the opposition, and the Admiralty.

Ideological preference did not guarantee negotiating capacity. American officials understood that MacDonald wanted peace and had domestic uses for money otherwise spent on defence. They also knew he had to balance socialists, trade unionists, Liberals, the opposition, and the Admiralty, so they could not assume his personal preferences would automatically become British policy. Labour's trade-union and socialist blocs also overlapped without being identical, complicating any assumption that the party held a single naval-policy line.