The UDC radicals were thus only a peripheral influence on Labour's response to the Versailles peace treaty in the early post-war years. Indeed, the main characteristics of Labour's policy development were not extremism and dissent but a lack of interest among the bulk of the party and an absence of policy co-ordination. This has clear implications for any understanding of the evolution of Labour's approach to European affairs in the period up to and including the 1924 government. Most commentators have argued that, as Labour moved closer to government, so its approach to the Versailles settlement became more moderate. However, given that the early post-war radicalisation of Labour's view has been exaggerated the ‘taming of Labour’ thesis suffers from the fact that, in reality, there was little real ‘taming’ to be done. While important changes did take place in Labour's approach to the post-war settlement in the early 1920s, policy was not so much altered as co-ordinated around the generally mainstream position for which Labour moderates had been arguing since 1918. This did not occur as a result of Labour's experience of government, but predated it. It was caused by the combined effects of political, economic and international developments, all of which encouraged Labour to adopt a more coherent approach to European affairs based upon practical proposals for extracting the continent from the increasingly dangerous situation that it had begun to enter by the beginning of 1921.