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The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded at the start of the 20th century, it has been seen since 1920 as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where it has only recently begun to organise again. Under "New Labour", the party's position has moved more towards the centre.

Labour first surpassed the Liberal Party as the main opposition party to the Conservatives in the early 1920s. Since then, the party has had several spells in government, firstly as minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-31, and then as a junior partner in the wartime coalition from 1940-1945. It would later form majority governments under Clement Attlee in 1945-51 and under Harold Wilson in 1964-70. Labour was in government again in 1974-79, first under Wilson, and then James Callaghan, though with a precarious and declining majority.

The Labour Party is the current ruling party of the United Kingdom; it won a 179-seat majority in the 1997 general election under the leadership of Tony Blair, its first general election victory since October 1974 and the first general election since 1970 in which it had exceeded 40% of the popular vote. The party's large majority in the House of Commons was slightly reduced to 167 in the 2001 general election and more substantially reduced to 66 in 2005. Labour is also the leading partner in the coalition Welsh government, is the main opposition party in the Scottish Parliament and has 13 members in the European Parliament. The current party leader is Gordon Brown.

The Labour Party is a member party of Socialist International, a Left-of-centre organisation committed to democratic socialism and social democracy and made up of political parties which emerged in many countries around the world in the 19th and 20th centuries out of labour, trade union and working-class political movements. Both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have served as Vice Presidents.

Party ideology

The party grew out of the trades union movement and socialist political parties of the 19th century seeking workers' representation, and describes itself as a "democratic socialist party". Traditionally and historically, Labour has stood for the representation of the working class; the most loyal Labour Party voters remain blue-collar workers, however, since the "New Labour" project began, a larger proportion of its support has come from middle-class voters, and many perceive this support as key to Labour's electoral success since 1997. Historically, the party was broadly in favour of socialism, as set out in Clause Four of the original party constitution, and advocated socialist policies such as public ownership of key industries, government intervention in the economy, redistribution of wealth, increased rights for workers and a belief in the welfare state, as well as publicly-funded healthcare and education.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, first under the leadership of the more centrist Neil Kinnock, and subsequently John Smith and Tony Blair, the party moved away from its socialist positions and towards adopting free market policies it previously rejected, leading many observers to describe the Labour Party as social democratic, or even neo-liberal, rather than democratic socialist.

The current Labour government has introduced a minimum wage, increased the spending on the NHS and education, and has introduced new public services such as Sure Start and Train to Gain. However, the party's stated goal of reducing the gap between the rich and poor continues to be pursued. Since 1997, when Labour came to power, 1.8 million children have been lifted out of absolute poverty, and 600,000 children have been lifted out of relative poverty.

The 2008 Labour Party Conference, for some, represented closer ties with big business and away from workers as Gordon Brown proclaimed "we are, we always have been and we always will be a pro business government". This conference was also the first at which affiliated trade unions and constituency Labour Parties did not have the right to submit motions on contemporary issues which would previously have been debated on the floor of conference. Labour Party Conference now includes more keynote addresses, guest speakers and question and answer sessions rather than specific discussion of policy, which now takes place in the National Policy Forum.

In the past, the trade unions were important in influencing Labour Party policy; however, since the creation of "New Labour", the influence of the unions on party policy has weakened to the extent that it could be said that the unions have no direct influence on policy or decision making in the Labour Party. Despite this, Labour is still financed by the majority of workers' unions and party leaders continue to attend and address TUC conferences.

Party constitution and structure

The Labour Party is a membership organisation consisting of Constituency Labour Parties, affiliated trade unions, socialist societies and the Co-operative Party, with which it has an electoral agreement. Members who are elected to parliamentary positions take part in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP). The party's decision-making bodies on a national level formally include the National Executive Committee (NEC), Labour Party Conference and National Policy Forum (NPF) — although in practise the Parliamentary leadership has the final say on policy. Questions of internal party democracy have frequently provoked disputes in the party.

For many years Labour held to a policy of uniting Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland by consent, and had not allowed residents of Northern Ireland to apply for membership, instead supporting the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) which has often taken the Labour whip at the House of Commons. Yet Labour has a unionist faction in its ranks, many of whom assisted in the foundation in 1995 of the UK Unionist Party led by Robert McCartney. The 2003 Labour Party Conference accepted legal advice that the party could not continue to prohibit residents of the province joining, and whilst the National Executive has established a regional constituency party it has not yet agreed to contest elections there.

The party had 198,026 members on 31 December 2005 according to accounts filed with the Electoral Commission which was down on the previous year. In that year it had an income of about £35 million (£3.7 million from membership fees) and expenditure of about £50 million, high due to that year's general election.

Party electoral manifestos have not contained the term socialism since 1992, although when Clause 4 was abolished the words "the Labour Party is a democratic socialist party" were added to the party's constitution.

Internationally, the Labour Party is a member of the Socialist International. In European-wide politics, Labour is a member of the Party of European Socialists and in the European Parliament, the party's MEPs sit in the Socialists & Democrats group.

Labour is not strictly a political party, but instead a composition of trade unions and various political organisations. The Labour Party distinguishes between Constituency Labour Parties (CLP), Socialist Societies and Trade Union affiliates and entryist groups like Militant. The Communist Party of Great Britain was refused affiliation between 1921 and 1923. Lenin had argued that the CPGB should support the Labour Party despite it being a bourgeois workers party.

History

Founding of the party

The Labour Party's origins lie in the late 19th century, around which time it became apparent that there was a need for a new political party to represent the interests and needs of the urban proletariat, a demographic which had increased in number and had recently been given franchise. Some members of the trades union movement became interested in moving into the political field, and after further extensions of the voting franchise in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party endorsed some trade-union sponsored candidates. In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time, with the intention of linking the movement to political policies. Among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party.

In the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates but won only 44,325 votes. Keir Hardie, the leader of the party, believed that to obtain success in parliamentary elections, it would be necessary to join with other left-wing groups.

Labour Representation Committee

In 1899, a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all left-wing organisations and form them into a single body, which would sponsor Parliamentary candidates. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, and this special conference was held at the Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street on 26 and 27 February 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations - trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates.

After a debate, the 129 delegates passed Hardie's motion to establish "a distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, and agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour." This created an association called the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), meant to coordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and representing the working-class population. It had no single leader. In the absence of one, the Independent Labour Party nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 "Khaki election" came too soon for the new party to effectively campaign; total expenses for the election only came to £33. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful: Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby.

Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case, a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike. The judgement effectively made strikes illegal, since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions. The apparent acquiescence of the Conservative government of Arthur Balfour to industrial and business interests (traditionally the allies of the Liberal Party in opposition to the Conservative's landed interests) intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared to have little concern for the industrial proletariat and its problems.

In the 1906 election, the LRC won 29 seats — helped by the secret 1903 pact between Ramsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone, which aimed to avoid splitting the opposition vote between Labour and Liberal candidates, in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.

In their first meeting after the election, the group's Members of Parliament decided to formally adopt the name "The Labour Party" (15 February 1906). Keir Hardie, who had taken a leading role in getting the party established, was elected as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (in effect, the Leader), although only by one vote over David Shackleton after several ballots. In the party's early years, the Independent Labour Party (ILP) provided much of its activist base, as the party did not have an individual membership until 1918 and operated as a conglomerate of affiliated bodies until that date. The Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement.

Early years and the rise of the Labour Party

The 1910 election saw 42 Labour MPs elected to the House of Commons; this was a significant victory, as a year before the election the House of Lords had passed the Osborne judgment, which ruled that Trades Unions in the United Kingdom could no longer donate money to fund the election campaigns and wages of Labour MPs. The governing Liberals were unwilling to repeal this judicial decision with primary legislation. The height of Liberal compromise was to introduce a wage for Members of Parliament, to remove the need to involve the Trade Unions. By 1913, faced with the opposition of the largest Trades Unions, the Liberal government passed the Trade Disputes Act to once more allow Trade Unions to fund Labour MPs.

During the First World War, the Labour Party split between supporters and opponents of the conflict, and opposition within the party to the war grew as time went on. Ramsay MacDonald, a notable anti-war campaigner, resigned as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party and Arthur Henderson became the main figure of authority within the Party. He was soon accepted into Prime Minister Asquith's War Cabinet, becoming the first Labour Party member to serve in government.

Despite mainstream Labour Party's support for the Coalition, the Independent Labour Party was instrumental in opposing mobilisation through organisations such as the Non-Conscription Fellowship and a Labour Party affiliate, the British Socialist Party, organised a number of unofficial strikes.

Arthur Henderson resigned from the Cabinet in 1917 amidst calls for Party unity, being replaced by George Barnes. The growth in Labour's local activist base and organisation was reflected in the elections following the War, with the co-operative movement now providing its own resources to the Co-operative Party after the armistice. The Co-operative Party later reached an electoral agreement with the Labour Party.

Following the war, the Liberal Party went into rapid decline, with the party suffering a catastrophic, internal split. This allowed the Labour Party to co-opt much of the Liberals' support.

With the Liberals in disarray, Labour won 142 seats in 1922, making it the second largest political group in the House of Commons and the official opposition to the Conservative government. After the election, the now rehabilitated Ramsay MacDonald was voted the first official leader of the Labour Party.

First Labour government (1924)

The 1923 general election was fought on the Conservatives' protectionist proposals; although they got the most votes and remained the largest party, they lost their majority in parliament, requiring a government supporting free trade to be formed. Thus, with the acquiescence of Asquith's Liberals, Ramsay MacDonald became the first ever Labour Prime Minister in January 1924, forming the first Labour government, despite Labour only having 191 MPs (less than a third of the House of Commons).

Because the government had to rely on the support of the Liberals, it was unable to get any socialist legislation passed by the House of Commons. The only significant measure was the Wheatley Housing Act, which began a building programme of 500,000 homes for rent to working-class families.

The government collapsed after only nine months when the Liberals voted for a Select Committee inquiry into the Campbell Case, a vote which MacDonald had declared to be a vote of confidence. The ensuing general election saw the publication, four days before polling day, of the notorious Zinoviev letter, which implicated Labour in a plot for a Communist revolution in Britain, and the Conservatives were returned to power, although Labour increased its vote from 30.7% of the popular vote to a third of the popular vote — most of the Conservative gains were at the expense of the Liberals. The Zinoviev letter is now generally believed to have been a forgery.

In opposition, Ramsay MacDonald continued with his policy of presenting the Labour Party as a moderate force in politics. During the General Strike of 1926, he opposed strike action, arguing that the best way to achieve social reforms was through the ballot box.

Second Labour government (1929-1931)

At the 1929 general election, the Labour Party for the first time became the largest in the House of Commons, with 287 seats and 37.1% of the popular vote. However, MacDonald was still reliant on Liberal support to form a minority government.

MacDonald went on to appoint the first ever female cabinet minister; Margaret Bondfield, who was appointed Minister of Labour.

The government, however, soon found itself engulfed in crisis; the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and eventual Great Depression occurred soon after the government came to power, and the crisis hit Britain hard. By the end of 1930 the unemployment rate had doubled to over two and a half million.

The government had no effective answers to the crisis. By the summer of 1931, a dispute over whether or not to introduce large cuts to public spending had split the government. With the economic situation worsening, MacDonald agreed to form a "National Government" with the Conservatives and the Liberals.

On 24 August 1931, MacDonald submitted the resignation of his ministers and led a small number of his senior colleagues in forming the National Government, together with the other parties. This move caused great anger within the Labour Party, who felt betrayed by MacDonald's actions, and he and his supporters were promptly expelled from the Labour Party. They went on to form the governing National Labour Party, with the remaining Labour Party (again led by Arthur Henderson) and a few Liberals going into opposition.

The ensuing general election resulted in a landslide victory for the National Government, and was a disaster for the Labour Party, which won only 52 seats - 225 fewer than in 1929.

Opposition during the 1930s

Arthur Henderson, who had been elected in 1931 to succeed MacDonald, humiliatingly lost his seat in the 1931 general election. The only former Labour cabinet member who survived the landslide was the pacifist George Lansbury, who accordingly became party leader.

The party experienced an even further split in 1932 when the Independent Labour Party, which for some years had been increasingly at odds with the Labour leadership, opted to disaffiliate from the Labour Party. The ILP embarked on a long, drawn-out decline.

Lansbury resigned as leader in 1935 after public disagreements over foreign policy. He was promptly replaced as leader by his deputy Clement Attlee, who would go on to lead the party for two decades. The party experienced a revival in the 1935 general election, winning 154 seats and 38% of the popular vote - the highest percentage that Labour had ever achieved.

With the rising threat from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the Labour Party gradually abandoned its earlier pacifist stance, and came out in favour of re-armament. This shift largely came about due to the efforts of Ernest Bevin and Hugh Dalton who, by 1937, had also persuaded the party to oppose Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement.

Wartime coalition

The party was eventually brought back into government in 1940, as part of the wartime coalition government. When Neville Chamberlain resigned after Norway was defeated by Germany in the spring of 1940, the incoming Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided that it was important to bring the other main parties into the government, with a coalition similar to that of the First World War. Clement Attlee was appointed Lord Privy Seal and a member of the War Cabinet, becoming first effectively and then eventually formally the United Kingdom's first ever Deputy Prime Minister, for the remainder of the war.

A number of other senior Labour figures also took up senior positions; the trade union leader Ernest Bevin, as Minister of Labour, directed Britain's wartime economy and allocation of manpower; the veteran Labour statesman Herbert Morrison became Home Secretary; Hugh Dalton was Minister of Economic Warfare and later President of the Board of Trade; and A. V. Alexander resumed the role of First Lord of the Admiralty he had held in the previous Labour government. The party performed well in government, and the first-hand experience they gained there may have been partly responsible for its post-war success.

Post-war victory under Attlee

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Labour resolved not to repeat the Liberals' errors of 1918, promptly withdrawing from the government to contest the 1945 general election in opposition to Churchill's Conservatives. Surprising many observers, Labour won a landslide victory, winning just under 50% of the vote with a majority of 145 seats.

Clement Attlee's government proved to be one of the most radical British governments of the 20th century. It presided over a policy of selective nationalisation of major industries and utilities, including the Bank of England, coal mining, the steel industry, electricity, gas, telephones and inland transport (including the railways, road haulage and canals). It developed and implemented the "cradle to grave" welfare state, conceived by the Liberal economist William Beveridge. To this day, the party still considers the creation in 1948 of Britain's publicly funded National Health Service under health minister Aneurin Bevan its proudest achievement. Attlee's government also began the process of dismantling the British Empire, when it granted independence first to India and Pakistan in 1947, followed by Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) the following year.

With the onset of the Cold War, at a secret meeting in January 1947, Attlee and six cabinet ministers, including Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, secretly decided to proceed with the development of Britain's nuclear deterrent, in opposition to the pacifist and anti-nuclear stances of a large element inside the Labour Party.

Labour went on to win the 1950 general election, but with a much reduced majority of five seats. Soon after the 1950 election, things started to go badly wrong for the Labour government. Defence became one of the divisive issues for Labour itself, especially defence spending (which reached a high of 14% of GDP in 1951 during the Korean War). These costs put enormous strain on public finances, forcing savings to be found elsewhere. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell introduced prescription charges for NHS prescriptions, causing Bevan, along with Harold Wilson (then-President of the Board of Trade) to resign over the dilution of the principle of free treatment, on which the NHS had been established.

Soon after this, another election was called. Labour narrowly lost the 1951 election to the Conservatives, despite their receiving a larger share of the popular vote and, in fact, their highest vote ever numerically.

Most of the changes introduced by the 1945-51 Labour government were accepted by the Conservatives and became part of the "post war consensus", which lasted until the late-1970s.

Opposition during the 1950s

Following their defeat in 1951, the party underwent a long period in opposition lasting thirteen years. The party suffered an ideological split during the 1950s, and the postwar economic recovery meant that the public was broadly content with the Conservative governments of the time. Attlee remained as leader until his retirement in 1955.

His replacement Hugh Gaitskell, a man associated with the right of the party, struggled to deal with internal divisions in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and Labour lost the 1959 general election. Gaitskell's sudden death of a heart attack in 1963 made way for Harold Wilson to lead the party.

Labour in government under Wilson (1964-1970)

A downturn in the economy, along with a series of scandals in the early 1960s (the most notorious being the Profumo affair), engulfed the Conservative government by 1963. The Labour Party returned to government with a wafer-thin 4 seat majority under Wilson in the 1964 election, and increased their majority to 96 in the 1966 election.

Events, however, would soon derail the wave of optimism which swept Labour to power in 1964. Wilson's government inherited a large trade deficit, which led to a currency crisis and an ultimately doomed attempt to stave off devaluation of the pound. Wilson's government was also responsible for a number of sweeping social and educational reforms, such as the legalisation of abortion and homosexuality (initially intended only for men aged 21 or over). The 1960s Labour government also expanded comprehensive education and created the Open University.

Labour went on to unexpectedly lose the 1970 election to the Conservatives, now under Edward Heath; Heath's government, however, soon ran into trouble over Northern Ireland and a dispute with miners in 1973 which led to the "three-day week".

The 1970s proved to be a very difficult time to be in government for both the Conservatives and Labour, due to the 1973 oil crisis, which caused high inflation and a global recession.

Labour were returned to power again under Wilson a few weeks after the February 1974 general election, forming a minority government with the support of the Ulster Unionists. The Conservatives were unable to form a government as they had fewer seats, despite receiving more votes numerically. It was the first general election since 1924 in which both main parties received less than 40% of the popular vote, and was the first of six successive general elections in which Labour failed to reach 40% of the popular vote. In a bid to gain a proper majority, a second election was soon called for October 1974 in which Labour, still with Harold Wilson as leader, managed to scrape a majority of three, gaining just 18 seats and taking their total to 319.

1974-1979

In government, the Labour Party's internal splits over Britain's membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) which Britain had entered under Edward Heath in 1972, led to a national referendum on the issue in 1975, in which two thirds of the public supported continued membership.

The Labour government struggled for much of its time in office, both with serious economic problems and its precarious majority in the Commons. Fear of advances by the nationalist parties, particularly in Scotland, led to the suppression of a report from Scottish Office economist Gavin McCrone which suggested that an independent Scotland would be 'chronically in surplus'. Despite this, Harold Wilson's personal popularity remained reasonably high throughout this time; however, he unexpectedly resigned as Prime Minister in 1976, citing health reasons. He was replaced by James Callaghan.

The Wilson and Callaghan governments were hampered by their lack of a workable majority in the Commons. At the October 1974 election, Labour won a majority of only three seats. Several by-election losses and defections to the breakaway Scottish Labour Party meant that by 1977, Callaghan was heading a minority government, forced to do deals with other, smaller parties in order to survive. An arrangement was negotiated in 1977 with Liberal leader David Steel, known as the Lib-Lab Pact, but this ended after one year. After this, deals were forged with various small parties, including the Scottish National Party and the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru, all of which prolonged the life of the government slightly longer.

The Wilson and Callaghan governments in the 1970s tried to control inflation (which had reached 26.9% in 1975) by instituting a policy of wage restraint. This policy was initially fairly successful at controlling inflation, which had been reduced to 7.4% by 1978. However it led to increasingly strained relations between the government and the trade unions.

Callaghan had been widely expected to call a general election in the autumn of 1978, when most opinion polls showed Labour to have a narrow lead. However, he instead decided to extend the wage restraint policy for another year in the hope that the economy would be in a better shape in time for a 1979 election. This proved to be a big mistake. During the winter of 1978-79, there were widespread strikes in favour of higher pay rises which caused significant disruption to everyday life. The strikes affected lorry drivers, railway workers, car workers and local government and hospital workers. These events came to be dubbed as the "Winter of Discontent".

The nationalist parties, in turn, demanded devolution to their respective constituent countries in return for their support for the government. When referendums for Scottish and Welsh devolution were held in March 1979, the Welsh referendum was rejected outright, and the Scottish referendum had a narrow majority in favour, but did not reach the threshold of 40% support of the electorate, a requirement of the legislation. When the Labour government duly refused to push ahead with setting up the proposed Scottish Assembly, the SNP withdrew its support for the government; this finally brought the government down, as it triggered a vote of confidence in Callaghan's government, which was lost by a single vote on 28th March 1979, necessitating a general election.

In the 1979 election, Labour suffered electoral defeat to the Conservatives, now led by Margaret Thatcher. The number of people voting Labour hardly changed between February 1974 and 1979, but in 1979 the Conservative Party achieved big increases in support in the Midlands and South of England, benefiting from a surge in turnout and the ailing Liberals.

The 'Wilderness Years' (1979-1997)

Following their defeat at the 1979 election, the Labour Party underwent a period of bitter internal rivalry, becoming embroiled in conflict between the ever more dominant Left, under Michael Foot and Tony Benn (whose supporters dominated the party organisation at the grassroots level), and the Right under Denis Healey.

The election of Michael Foot as leader in 1980 dismayed many on the right of the party, who believed that Labour was becoming too left-wing, and potentially unelectable. In 1981, a group of four former cabinet ministers (Shirley Williams, William Rodgers, Roy Jenkins, and David Owen), who were from both the right and centre of the Labour Party, issued the "Limehouse Declaration", before forming the break-away Social Democratic Party.

Margaret Thatcher's government was initially deeply unpopular due to high unemployment and inflation, but the success of the Falklands War in 1982 and the right to buy scheme revived her popularity, with the formation of the SDP additionally splitting the opposition vote. The Labour Party was defeated by a landslide in the 1983 general election, winning only 27.6% of the vote, their lowest share since 1918, and receiving only half a million votes more than the SDP-Liberal Alliance.

Michael Foot promptly resigned as leader and was replaced by the moderate Neil Kinnock, who progressively moved the party towards the centre. Labour improved its performance in 1987, with a much-praised campaign gaining 20 seats, which reduced the Conservative majority to 102 from 143.

Neil Kinnock was seen as too right-wing for much of the Labour Left, especially the so-called Militant Tendency. Kinnock later forced this group out of the party, and they would later form the Socialist Party of England and Wales and Scottish Militant Labour. However, a remnant of Militant continues to this day to operate within the Labour Party through the magazine Socialist Appeal.

Margaret Thatcher was forced out of office by her own colleagues and replaced as Prime Minister by John Major in November 1990. By the time of the 1992 general election, the economy was in recession and, despite the personal unpopularity of Neil Kinnock, Labour looked as if it could win. The party had dropped its policy of Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament and other key policy differences with the Conservatives were ended as Labour dropped their previous policies in favour of accepting the Conservative positions, with re-nationalisation of public utilities and Trade Union rights being just two areas of this process. Most opinion polls showed the party to have a slight lead over the Conservatives, although rarely sufficient for a majority, or that Labour would force a hung parliament, but in fact, the Conservatives were returned to power with a much reduced majority of 20.

After this unexpected defeat, Kinnock resigned as leader and was replaced by John Smith. Soon after the 1992 election, the Conservative government ran into trouble when, on Black Wednesday, it was forced to take Britain out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. After this disaster for the Conservatives, Labour moved ahead in the opinion polls. John Smith's sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994 would make way for Tony Blair to lead the Party.

"New Labour"

Tony Blair continued to move the party further to the centre, abandoning the largely symbolic Clause Four at the 1995 mini-conference in a strategy to increase the party's appeal to "middle England". More than a simple 're-branding', however, the project would draw upon a new political 'third way', particularly informed by the thought of the British sociologist Anthony Giddens.

"New Labour" was first termed as an alternative branding for the Labour Party, dating from a conference slogan first used by the Labour Party in 1994, which was later seen in a draft manifesto published by the party in 1996, called New Labour, New Life For Britain. The rise of the name coincided with a centrist shift of the British political spectrum; for Labour, this was a continuation of the trend that had begun under the leadership of Neil Kinnock. "New Labour" as a name has no official status, but remains in common use to distinguish modernisers from those holding to more traditional positions, normally referred to as "Old Labour". New Labour has been used as a derogative term by some to separate the supposedly "Thatcherite" policies adopted by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to that of "Old Labour" and the old Clause Four.

Despite having been a self-confessed socialist in the past, as stated in his maiden speech in 1983, Tony Blair whilst Labour leader, had made the party appear much more social democratic than socialist, with centrist policies. Blair was the most right-leaning Labour leader since Hugh Gaitskell who had himself attempted to amend Clause Four in 1959, claiming that the Clause's implications had caused the party to lose that year's general election - at that time, the Labour Left were strong enough to prevent him from amending the Clause.

Though it has been argued by the Labour Right that the New Labour "project" was not to change the Labour Party but rather to modernise and bring socialism into the 21st century and to make democratic socialism and the Labour Party appealing to the electorate after a long period in opposition, this argument has been rebuked by those on the "Old Labour" Left, who argue that there has in fact been a move away from democratic socialism and that this alleged move is designed to be an eventual movement from any left-wing ideology completely. The Left also see Tony Blair's decision to continue to define Labour as a socialist party whilst ammending Clause Four as misleading and untrue.

In government (1997-present)

The Labour Party won the 1997 general election with a huge landslide majority of 179; it was the largest Labour majority ever, and the largest swing to a political party achieved since 1945.

Among the early acts of Tony Blair's government were the establishment of the national minimum wage, the devolution of power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the re-creation of a city-wide government body for London, the Greater London Authority, with its own elected-mayor. Combined with a Conservative opposition that had yet to organise effectively under William Hague, and the continuing popularity of Blair, Labour went on to win the 2001 election with a similar majority, dubbed by the media as the "quite landslide".

A perceived turning point was when Tony Blair controversially allied himself with US President George W. Bush in supporting the Iraq War, which caused him to lose much of his political support. The UN Secretary-General. , among many, considered the war illegal. The Iraq War was deeply unpopular in most western countries, with Western governments divided in their support. At the 2005 election, Labour did achieve an historic third term in office, but with a much reduced majority, and Tony Blair, once considered such an electoral asset to the Labour Party, became an increasing liability. It was around this time also that David Cameron became leader of the Conservatives, and for the first time since 1997, the Conservatives establised a lead over Labour in the opinion polls.

Significantly, the party lost power in Scotland to a minority Scottish National Party government in 2007. Shortly after this, Tony Blair resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by his Chancellor, Gordon Brown. Although the party experienced a brief rise in the polls after this, its popularity soon slumped to its lowest level since the days of Michael Foot. During May 2008, Labour suffered heavy defeats in the London mayoral election, local elections and the shock loss in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, culminating in the party registering its worst ever opinion poll result since records began in 1943, of 23%, with many citing Brown's leadership as a key factor.

Finance has proved a major problem for the Labour Party during this governmental period; a "cash for peerages" scandal under Tony Blair resulted in the drying up of many major sources of donations. Declining party membership, partially due to the reduction of activists' influence upon policy-making under the reforms of Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair, also contributed to financial problems. Between January and March 2008, the Labour Party received just over £3 million in donations and were £17 million in debt; compared to the Conservatives' £6 million in donations and £12 million in debt.

Gordon Brown's government suffered its first significant defeat in the House of Lords on 15 October 2008, when proposals to allow police to hold terror suspects for 42 days without charge were rejected. The economic crisis in late 2008 heavily boosted Brown's popularity,, as he was perceived to be a more competent leader on the issue of the economy, having been Chancellor for ten years, although this seems to have dropped recently, as by March 2009, the Conservatives took a six point lead in ICM polls. The gap has continued to widen as the economic crisis has worsened, though Mr Brown has insisted that he is capable of guiding Labour to an historic fourth successive election victory.

Electoral performance

This chart shows the electoral performance of the Labour Party in general elections since 1900.

The first election held under the Representation of the People Act 1918 in which all men over 21, and most women over the age of 30 could vote, and therefore a much larger electorate.

The first election under universal suffrage in which all women aged over 21 could vote.

Leaders of the Labour Party since 1900

See also List of United Kingdom Labour Party leaders

Deputy Leaders of the Labour Party since 1922

See also Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK)

Leaders of the Labour Party in the House of Lords since 1924

• Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane 1924-1928
• Charles Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor 1928-1931
• Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede 1931-1935
• Harry Snell, 1st Baron Snell 1935-1940
• Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount Addison 1940-1952
• William Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt 1952-1955
• Albert Victor Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough 1955-1964
• Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford 1964-1968
• Edward Shackleton, Baron Shackleton 1968-1974
• Malcolm Shepherd, 2nd Baron Shepherd 1974-1976
• Fred Peart, Baron Peart 1976-1982
• Cledwyn Hughes, Baron Cledwyn of Penrhos 1982-1992
• Ivor Richard, Baron Richard 1992-1998
• Margaret Jay, Baroness Jay of Paddington 1998-2001
• Gareth Williams, Baron Williams of Mostyn 2001-2003
• Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos 2003-2007
• Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland 2007-2008
• Janet Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon 2008-

Labour Prime Ministers

Ramsay MacDonald (1924; 1929-1931)

Clement Attlee (1945-1950; 1950-1951)

Harold Wilson (1964-1966; 1966-1970; 1974-1976)

James Callaghan (1976-1979)

Tony Blair (1997-2001; 2001-2005; 2005-2007)

Gordon Brown (2007-present)

See also

References

1. http://www.labour.org.uk/labour_policies
2. http://www.parties-and-elections.de/unitedkingdom.html
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/458626.stm
4. http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/30
5. Belfast Telegraph
6. ^ "Labour's policies". Retrieved 2007-07-21.
7. New Labour and Thatcherism: Political Change in Britain, Richard Heffernan, 2001; New Labour has picked up where Thatcherism left off, Stuart Hall, The Guardian, 6 August 2003; From Thatcherism to New Labour: Neo-Liberalism, Workfarism and Labour Market Regulation, Professor Bob Jessop, Lancaster University; New Labour, Economic Reform and the European Social Model, Jonathon Hopkin and Daniel Wincott, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 2006.
8. Guardian Unlimited, Wealth Gap Narrows faster in UK
9. Brewer, Mike (June 2008). "Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2008" (pdf). Institute for Fiscal Studies. Retrieved 2009-03-05. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
10. "Anger over 'union debate limit'". BBC News Website. 2007-09-19. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
11. Error in Webarchive template: Empty url., ca. 1999. via Internet Archive. Accessed 31 March 2007. "Residents of Northern Ireland are not eligible for membership."
12. Understanding Ulster by Antony Alcock, Ulster Society Publications, 1997. Chapter II: The Unloved, Unwanted Garrison. Via Conflict Archive on the Internet. Accessed 31 October 2008.
13. Labour NI ban overturned, BBC News. 1 October 2003. Accessed 31 March 2007.
14. "The Labour Party — Financial Statements for 2005" (PDF).
15. http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/redclyde/redcly140.htm
16. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch09.htm
17. See, for instance, the 1899 Lyons vs. Wilkins judgement, which limited certain types of picketing
18. Mortimer, Jim, ‘The formation of the labour party - Lessons for today’ 2000 Jim Mortimer was a General Secretary of the Labour Party in the 1980s
19. http://www.labour.org.uk/history_of_the_labour_party
20. Wright T. & Carter M,(1997) "The People's Party" Thames & Hudson, ISBN 0-500-27956-x
21. ^ Thorpe, Andrew. (2001) A History Of The British Labour Party, Palgrave, ISBN 0-333-92908-x
22. "The truth about Churchill's spy chief and the Zinoviev Letter". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |publication= ignored (help)
23. ^ Davies, A.J. (1996) To Build A New Jerusalem: The British Labour Party from Keir Hardie to Tony Blair, Abacus, ISBN 0349 108099
24. "1945: Churchill loses general election". BBC. 1945-07-26. Retrieved 2009-02-22.
25. Clark, Sir George, Illustrated History Of Great Britain, (1987) Octupus Books
26. http://www.snpyouth.org/ysi/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=24
27. 1992: Tories win again against odds BBC News, 5 April 2005
28. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,745536,00.html
29. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134
30. http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/08/28/sochi_ed3_.php
31. Lovell, Jeremy (2008-05-30). "Brown hit by worst party rating". London: Reuters. Retrieved 2008-06-28. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
32. "New figures published showing political parties' donations and borrowing". The Electoral Commission. 2008-05-22. Retrieved 2008-07-02.
33. Guardian Newspaper December 2008
34. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/26/icm-poll
35. Source: http://www.election.demon.co.uk/geresults.html

Further reading

• Davies, A.J, To Build A New Jerusalem (1996) ISBN 0349108099
• Geoffrey Foote, The Labour Party's Political Thought: A History, Macmillan, 1997 ed.
• Martin Francis, Ideas and Policies under Labour 1945-51, Manchester University Press, 1997. ISBN 0719048338
• Roy Hattersley, New Statesman, 10 May 2004, 'We should have made it clear that we too were modernisers'
• David Howell, British Social Democracy, Croom Helm, 1976
• David Howell, MacDonald's Party, Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Ralph Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism, Merlin, 1960, 1972. ISBN 0850361354
• Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power, 1945-51, OUP, 1984.
• Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour People: Leaders and Lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock OUP, 1992. ISBN 0192852701
• Henry Pelling and Alastair J. Reid, A Short History of the Labour Party, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 ed. ISBN 1403993130
• Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left in the 1930s, Cambridge University Press, 1977.
• Raymond Plant, Matt Beech and Kevin Hickson (2004), The Struggle for Labour's Soul: understanding Labour's political thought since 1945, Routledge. ISBN 0415312841
• Clive Ponting, Breach of Promise, 1964-70, Penguin, 1990. ISBN 0140132600
• Greg Rosen, Dictionary of Labour Biography. Politicos Publishing, 2001. ISBN 1902301188
• Greg Rosen, Old Labour to New, Politicos Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1842750453
• Eric Shaw, The Labour Party since 1979: Crisis and Transformation, Routledge, 1994
• Andrew Thorpe, A History of the British Labour Party, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. ISBN 0230500110
• Phillip Whitehead, The Writing on the Wall, Michael Joseph, 1985.
• Patrick Wintour and Colin Hughes, Labour Rebuilt, Fourth Estate, 1990.
• John Pilger, Freedom Next Time, Bantam Press, 2006. ISBN 0593055527.

External links

Official party sites

• Labour
• Scottish Labour
• Welsh Labour
• London Assembly Labour
• Young Labour - Party youth wing
• Labour Party in Northern Ireland
• Labour Party in Westminster

Other

• Unofficial website with an archive of electoral manifestos and a directory of related websites
• Labourhome - unofficial Labour Party grassroots
• Labour History Group website
• Unofficial history website
• Guardian Unlimited Politics — Special Report: Labour Party
• Labour Party aggregated news (multilingual)
• Labour History Archive and Study Centre holds archives of the National Labour Party
• Template:Fr icon"Déroute historique des travaillistes". L'Humanité. 2008-05-05. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help) (Template:En icon Translation accessible on www.humaniteinenglish.com)

• Labour Party (UK)
• Social Democratic parties in the United Kingdom
• Socialist International
• Political parties established in 1900
• Labour parties
• PES member parties
• Democratic socialism
• Second International