In 1922, he joined the Labour Party and was ennobled in 1924 as
Baron Arnold, of Hale in the County of Chester, and served as
Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in
Ramsay MacDonald's short-lived
1924 Labour Government, and as
Paymaster General from 1929 to 6 March 1931 in Macdonald's
second government. In the late 1930s, he was a member of the Parliamentary
Pacifist Group. He also served as a member of the council of the
Anglo-German Fellowship. He resigned from the Labour Party, in 1938, on account of disagreement with its Foreign Policy. Subsequently, his name was one of twenty-six attached to a letter printed in
The Times supporting a policy of
appeasement towards Germany. Because signatories included
Barry Domvile and other leading members it was dubbed "
The Link Letter" and its various signatories, including political moderates such as Arnold,
William Harbutt Dawson,
Smedley Crooke and
Lord Londonderry, came under suspicion as
far right supporters. ==Arms==