Éamon de Valera those deserters who had served in the Allied forces. General Richard Mulcahy also spoke against the Order, disagreeing with the way in which it applied to enlisted men and not to officers. After de Valera had spent sixteen years in power without answering the crucial questions of partition and republican status the public demanded a change from Fianna Fáil government. In the 1948 election, de Valera lost the outright majority he'd enjoyed since 1933. It initially looked like the National Labour Party would give Fianna Fáil enough support to stay in office as a minority government, but National Labour insisted
Éamon de Valera Britain marked the occasion with a dinner in his honour and the toast was 'Anglo-Irish Friendship'. A key message in de Valera's campaign was that Ireland could not join the recently established North Atlantic Treaty Organization as long as Northern Ireland was in British hands; although the coalition government favored alliance with NATO, de Valera's approach won more widespread support and prevented the state from signing onto the treaty. Returning to Ireland, during the Mother and Child Scheme crisis that racked the First Inter-Party Government, de Valera kept a dignified silence as Leader of the Opposition, preferring to stay aloof