British Labour Party

The Labour Party is a traditionally center-left, democratic socialist political party in the United Kingdom, one of the nation's major parties. The Labour Party supports progressive policies such as democratic socialism—the concept of government providing basic needs to all citizens—social equality, and internationalism, the belief that countries should amicably integrate with other countries.

The Labour Party was founded in 1900 by socialists, trade union representatives, and others who believed in defending the rights of working-class British citizens. The party struggled to build national support in its early years and did not win a general election until the mid-1920s. The Labour Party enjoyed numerous electoral successes over the rest of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. Its primary political opponent remained the center-right Conservative Party.

Background

Since its founding, the Labour Party has been rooted in workers' rights, a cause that predates the organization itself. The ideological origins of the party can be traced to 1893, when Scottish miner and member of Parliament Keir Hardie established the Independent Labour Party. The group sought to represent the welfare of common laborers through democratic socialist policies. Democratic socialism calls for the establishment of a socialist society—one in which the people own the economy and share in its benefits equally—through democratic means. Hardie believed his party was better suited to defend workers' rights than the existing Liberal Party, and he tried to convince trade unions to shift their support to his Labour initiative.

Hardie continued building his party over the next several years. With the help of trade unions and democratic socialist organizations such as the Fabian Society, Hardie founded the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in 1900. The party's goal was to elect working-class citizens to Parliament so they could support the rights of laborers across the United Kingdom.

The LRC initially struggled to be taken seriously as a viable political force. In the early 1900s, the group had few actual members, and the center-right Conservative Party dismissed it as a weak imitation of the Liberal Party. The year 1906 saw the LRC make some gains, as twenty-nine party members secured parliamentary seats and Hardie was chosen as LRC leader in Parliament's House of Commons. The same year, the LRC simplified its name to the Labour Party. Still, the organization remained ineffective. Into the mid-1910s, it was forced to rely on collaborating with Liberal governments to enact any of its proposed legislation.

World War I (1914–18) divided the Labour Party, as some members opposed the war while others supported it. As such, the party could not define a clear platform to the public. In 1918, however, the Labour Party revitalized its platform by coherently declaring itself a party of socialist policies, such as the nationalization of industry and the subsequent redistribution of wealth. This new definition of party principles earned Labour 142 parliamentary seats in the 1922 elections. The Labour Party won nearly 200 seats in the 1924 elections. That year, Labour formed a coalition government with the Liberals and elected Ramsay MacDonald as the first Labour prime minister of the United Kingdom.

Overview

The first Labour government legislated on unemployment benefits, public housing, and social insurance. Nonetheless, with the Labour Party dependent on Liberals for its parliamentary majority, the government fell apart after ten months due to inter-coalition disagreements. Meanwhile, the Conservatives reclaimed the British government.

The Labour Party returned to power in the 1929 elections, but the US stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression (1929–39) later that year nearly destroyed the party's credibility. The Labour government struggled to reduce the United Kingdom's rising unemployment, as it refused to eliminate social benefits or raise taxes to accrue more national revenue. These failures led to Labour's parliamentary seats falling to fifty-two in the next round of elections, and the party was kept out of power for another decade.

The end of World War II (1939–45) in 1945 provided the Labour Party with an opportunity for a fresh appeal to the British people. The organization advertised itself as capable of leading the United Kingdom into a future free of unemployment, poverty, and indignity. The public responded to this message, and Labour won nearly four hundred parliamentary seats, while party leader Clement Attlee became prime minister. The next six years were glorious for Labour, as the party introduced social welfare programs and nationalized manufacturing industries such as coal and steel. This success left nothing more for the party to promise the British people by 1951, and Labour was voted out of office that year.

The Labour Party secured national power again in 1964, with Harold Wilson as prime minister. Wilson's government liberalized British society over the next six years, with many formerly ill-regarded activities—such as abortion, divorce, and being out as gay—becoming legal. Labour lost power in 1970 but returned to the national level later in the decade. This era was difficult for the party, as it struggled continually to rein in inflation and unemployment. Labour's failings led Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Party to gain power in 1979.

The Labour Party began shifting its ideology to the extreme left in the early 1980s, which caused it to lose even more favor with the public. Welsh member of Parliament Neil Kinnock became Labour leader in 1983 and quickly set about changing the party's image. He did this by halting Labour's left-wing shift and dropping the organization's support for high taxes and the nationalization of industry.

Tony Blair became Labour leader in 1994. He radically reformed the party's constitution to focus on stabilizing the economy and improving health care and education. This new image led Labour to a major victory in the 1997 general election, and Blair became prime minister. He executed his party's revised agenda over the next few years, and he was reelected in 2001 and 2005. Blair resigned in 2007 and was replaced by Gordon Brown, who had served in Blair's administration.

Brown's poor handling of the British economy during the worldwide economic recession of the late 2000s led Conservative David Cameron to be elected prime minister in 2010. Labour once again became the opposition party in Parliament. Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party in September 2015. Though he supported traditional Labour values, his policies leaned further left than in Labour history, and as numerous members of his party began challenging his leadership, the party performed poorly at both the 2017 and 2019 elections under his reign.

Corbyn's decision to step down in 2019 led to a new leadership election in 2020 that saw Keir Starmer prove victorious. When the Conservative Party then struggled to maintain support in the coming years amid a global pandemic, economic woes, and weakened party solidarity illustrated by a transition between three prime ministers in 2022 alone, the Labour Party was able to return to power in the early election called in July 2024. A combination of strategic campaigning and public disillusionment with the Conservative Party allowed the Labour Party to claim a large number of seats and, subsequently, a wide majority.

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