History of the British Labour Party
Encyclopedia
This is about the history of the British Labour Party
. For information about the wider history of British socialism see History of socialism in Great Britain
.
The Labour Party grew out of the trade union
movement and socialist political parties of the 19th century, and surpassed the Liberal Party
as the main opposition to the Conservatives
in the early 1920s. It has had several spells in government, first as minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald
in 1924 and 1929–31, then as a junior partner in the wartime coalition from 1940–1945, and then as a majority government, under Clement Attlee
in 1945–51 and under Harold Wilson
in 1964–70. Labour was in government again in 1974–79, under Wilson and then James Callaghan
, though with a precarious and declining majority.
The previous national Labour government won a landslide 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
.
The Labour Party's origins lie in the late 19th century numeric increase of the urban proletariat and the extension of the franchise
to working-class males, when it became apparent that there was a need for a political party to represent the interests and needs of those groups. Some members of the trade union movement became interested in moving into the political field, and after the extensions of the 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.
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 the 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, Farringdon Street, London
on February 26–27, 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations; trade unions representing 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, 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. 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. The LRC won two by-elections in 1902–1903.
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 at avoiding Labour/Liberal contests in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.
In their first meeting after the election, the group's Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name "The Labour Party" (February 15, 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.
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 and was soon accepted into H. H. Asquith
's War Cabinet.
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.
The Liberal Party splitting between supporters of leader David Lloyd George and former leader H. H. Asquith
allowed the Labour Party to co-opt some of the Liberals' support, and by the 1922 general election
Labour had supplanted the Liberal Party
as the second party in the United Kingdom and as the official opposition to the Conservatives
. After the election, the now rehabilitated Ramsay MacDonald was voted the first official leader of the Labour Party.
Labour's electoral base resided in the industrial areas of Northern England
, the Midlands
, central Scotland
and Wales
. In these areas Labour Clubs were founded to provide recreation for working men, with many of these clubs becoming affiliated to The Working Men's Club and Institute Union. Because of the concentrated geographical nature of Labour's support, industrial downturns tended to hit Labour voters directly. Anecdotal evidence suggests that party membership was often working-class but also included many middle-class radicals, former liberals and socialists. Accordingly, the more middle-class branches in London and the South of England tended to be more left-wing and radical than those in the primary industrial areas.
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. So with the acquiescence of Asquith's Liberals, Ramsay MacDonald
became Prime Minister in January 1924 and formed the first ever 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.
faced a number of labour problems most notably the General Strike of 1926
. Ramsay MacDonald continued with his policy of opposing strike action
, including the General Strike
, arguing that the best way to achieve social reforms was through the ballot box, although Labour claimed that the BBC was biased in its reporting against the party over the issue.
left the Labour Party for the first time as the largest grouping in the House of Commons with 287 seats, and 37.1% of the popular vote (actually slightly less than the Conservatives). However, MacDonald was still reliant on Liberal support to form a minority government. MacDonald's government included the first ever woman cabinet minister Margaret Bondfield
who was appointed Minister of Labour
.
MacDonald's second government was in a stronger parliamentary position than his first, and in 1930 he was able to pass a revised Old Age Pensions Act, a more generous Unemployment Insurance Act, and an act to improve wages and conditions in the coal industry (i.e. the issues behind the General Strike).
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 Labour government struggled to cope with the crisis and found itself attempting to reconcile two contradictory aims; achieving a balanced budget in order to maintain the pound
on the Gold Standard
, whilst also trying to maintain assistance to the poor and unemployed. All of this whilst tax revenues were falling. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
, Philip Snowden refused to permit deficit spending
.
One junior minister, Oswald Mosley
, put forward a memorandum in January 1930, calling for the public control of imports and banking as well as an increase in pensions to boost spending power. When this was repeatedly turned down, Mosley resigned from the government in February 1931 and went on to form the New Party, and later the British Union of Fascists
after he converted to Fascism
.
By 1931 the situation had deteriorated further. Under pressure from its Liberal allies as well as the Conservative opposition who feared that the budget was unbalanced, the Labour government appointed a committee headed by Sir George May
to review the state of public finances. The May Report
of July 1931 urged public-sector wage cuts and large cuts in public spending (notably in payments to the unemployed) in order to avoid a budget deficit.
This proposal proved deeply unpopular within the Labour Party grass roots and the trade union
s, which along with several government ministers, refused to support any such measures. Several senior ministers such as Arthur Henderson
and J. R. Clynes threatened to resign rather than agree to the cuts. MacDonald, and Philip Snowden however, insisted that the Report's recommendations must be adopted to avoid incurring a budget deficit.
The dispute over spending and wage cuts split the Labour government; as it turned out, fatally. The cabinet repeatedly failed to agree to make cuts to spending or introduce tariffs. The resulting political deadlock caused investors to take fright, and a flight of capital and gold further de-stabilised the economy. In response, MacDonald, on the urging of King George V
, agreed to form a National Government, with the Conservatives
and the Liberals.
On August 24, 1931 MacDonald submitted the resignation of his ministers and led a small number of his senior colleagues, most notably Snowden and Dominions Secretary J. H. Thomas
, in forming the National Government with the other parties. MacDonald and his supporters were then expelled from the Labour Party and formed National Labour. The remaining Labour Party, now led by Arthur Henderson
, and a few Liberals went into opposition.
Soon after this, a General Election
was called. The 1931 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.
MacDonald continued as Prime Minister of the Conservative dominated National Government until 1935. MacDonald's actions in ditching the Labour government to form a coalition with the Conservatives, led to him being denounced by the Labour Party as a "traitor" and a "rat" for what they saw as his betrayal.
, who had been elected in 1931 as Labour leader to succeed MacDonald, 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 a 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. The role of the ILP within the Labour Party was taken up for a time by the Socialist League
led by Stafford Cripps
, until it was wound up in 1937.
The Labour Party moved to the left
during the early 1930s. The party's programme "For Socialism and Peace" adopted in 1934, committed the party to nationalisation of land, banking, coal, iron and steel, transport, power and water supply, as well as the setting up of a National Investment Board to plan industrial development.
Public disagreements between Lansbury and many Labour Party members over foreign policy, notably in relation to Lansbury's opposition to applying sanctions against Italy
for its aggression against Abyssinia
, caused Lansbury to resign during the 1935 Labour Party Conference. He was succeeded by his deputy Clement Attlee
, who achieved a revival in Labour's fortunes in the 1935 General Election
, winning a similar number of votes to those attained in 1929 and actually, at 38% of the popular vote, the highest percentage that Labour had ever achieved, securing 154 seats. Attlee was initially regarded as a caretaker leader, however he turned out to be the longest serving party leader to date, and one of its most successful.
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 rearmament. This shift largely came about due to the efforts of Ernest Bevin
and Hugh Dalton
who by 1937 also persuaded the party to oppose Neville Chamberlain
's policy of appeasement
.
Labour achieved a number of by-election upsets in the later part of the 1930s despite the world depression having come to an end and unemployment falling.
resigned as Prime Minister after the defeat in Norway in spring 1940, incoming Prime Minister Winston Churchill
decided that it was important to bring the other main parties into the government and have a Wartime Coalition similar to that in the First World War. Labour took two of the five seats in the War Cabinet. Clement Attlee became Lord Privy Seal
and was effectively (and eventually formally) Deputy Prime Minister
for the remainder of the duration of the War in Europe. Labour deputy leader Arthur Greenwood
took the other War Cabinet seat as Minister without Portfolio, given special responsibility for planning post-war reconstruction.
A number of other senior Labour figure 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 generally performed well in government, and its experience there may have been partly responsible for its post-war success.
(July 5) 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.
Although the exact reasons for the victory are still debated. During the war, public opinion surveys showed public opinion moving to the left and in favour of radical social reform. There was little public appetite for a return to the poverty and mass unemployment of the interwar years which had become associated with the Conservatives.
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 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 to India
in 1947. This was 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 minister 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 won 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 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
(President of the Board of Trade) to resign over the dilution of the principle of free treatment.
Soon after this, another election was called. Labour narrowly lost the October 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 however were accepted by the Conservatives and became part of the "post war consensus", which lasted until the 1970s.
" right of the party led by Hugh Gaitskell
and associated with thinkers such as Anthony Crosland
wanted the party to adopt a moderate social democratic
position. Whereas the "Bevanite
" left, led by Aneurin Bevan
wanted the party to adopt a more radical socialist position. This split, and the fact that the 1950s saw economic recovery and general public contentment with the Conservative governments of the time, helped keep the party out of power for thirteen years
After being defeated at the 1955 general election, Attlee resigned as leader and was replaced by Gaitskell. The trade union block vote, which generally voted with the leadership, ensured that the bevanites were eventually defeated.
The three key divisive issues that were to split the Labour party in successive decades emerged first during this period; nuclear disarmament
, the famous Clause IV
of the party's constitution, which called for the ultimate nationalisation of all means of production in the British economy, and Britain's entry into the European Economic Community
(EEC). Tensions between the two opposing sides were exacerbated after Attlee resigned as leader in 1955 and Gaitskell defeated Bevan in the leadership election that followed. The party was briefly revived and unified during the Suez Crisis
of 1956. The Conservative party was badly damaged by the incident while Labour was rejuvenated by its opposition to the policy of prime minister Anthony Eden
. But Eden was replaced by Harold Macmillan
, while the economy continued to improve.
In the 1959 election the Conservatives fought under the slogan "Life is better with the Conservatives, don't let Labour ruin it" and the result saw the government majority increase. Following the election bitter internecine disputes resumed. Gaitskell blamed the Left for the defeat and attempted unsuccessfully to amend Clause IV. At a hostile party conference in 1960 he failed to prevent a vote adopting unilateral nuclear disarmament as a party policy, declaring in response that he would "fight, fight and fight again to save the party I love". The decision was reversed the following year, but it remained a divisive issue, and many in the left continued to call for a change of leadership.
When the Conservative government attempted to take Britain into the EEC in 1962, Gaitskell alienated some of his supporters by his opposition to British membership. In a speech to the party conference in October 1962 Gaitskell claimed that EEC membership would mean "the end of Britain as an independent European state. I make no apology for repeating it. It means the end of a thousand years of history".
Gaitskell died suddenly in January 1963 from a rare disease. His death made way for Harold Wilson
to lead the party. The term "thirteen wasted years" was coined by Wilson as a slogan for the 1964 general election, in reference to what he claimed were thirteen wasted years of Conservative government.
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 1966 election
remaining in power until the 1970 election
which, contrary to expectations during the campaign, they lost.
put faith in economic planning
as a way to solve Britain's economic problems. Wilson famously referred to the "white heat of technology", referring to the modernisation of British industry. This was to be achieved through the swift adoption of new technology, aided by government-funded infrastructure improvements and the creation of large high-tech public sector corporations guided by a Ministry of Technology. Economic planning through the new Department of Economic Affairs
was to improve the trade balance, whilst Labour carefully targeted taxation aimed at "luxury" goods and services.
In practice however, Labour had difficulty managing the economy under the "Keynesian consensus" and the international markets instinctively mistrusted the party. Events derailed much of the initial optimism. Upon coming to power, the government was informed that the trade deficit was far worse than expected. This soon led to a currency crisis
; despite enormous efforts to shore up the value of sterling, in November 1967 the government was forced into devaluation
of the pound from $2.80 to $2.40, which damaged the government's credibility.
For much of the remaining Parliament the government followed stricter controls in public spending and the necessary austerity measures caused consternation amongst the Party membership and the trade unions, unions which by this time were gaining ever greater political power.
In the event, the devaluation, and austerity measures successfully restored the balance of payments into a surplus by 1969. However, they unexpectedly turned into a small deficit again in 1970. The bad figures were announced just before polling in the 1970 general election, and are often cited as one of the reasons for Labour's defeat.
As a gesture towards Labour's left wing supporters. Wilson's government renationalised the steel industry in 1967 (which had been denationalised by the Conservatives in the 1950s) creating British Steel
.
social reforms introduced or supported by Home Secretary
Roy Jenkins
. Notable amongst these was the legalisation of male homosexuality
and abortion
, reform of divorce
laws, the abolition of theatre censorship
and capital punishment
(except for a small number of offences - notably high treason
) and various legislation addressing race relations and racial discrimination.
In Wilson's defence, his supporters also emphasise the easing of means testing for non-contributory welfare benefits, the linking of pensions to earnings, and the provision of industrial-injury benefits. Wilson's government also made significant reforms to education
, most notably the expansion of comprehensive education and the creation of the Open University
.
In spite of the economic difficulties faced by Wilson's government, it was thereforeable to achieve important advances in a number of domestic policy areas. As reflected by Harold Wilson in 1971,
"It was a government which faced disappointment after disappointment and none greater than the economic restraints in our ability to carry through the social revolution to which we were committed at the speed we would have wished. Yet, despite those restraints and the need to transfer resources from domestic expenditure, private and public, to the needs of our export markets, we carried through an expansion in the social services, health, welfare and housing, unparallelled in our history".
entitled "In Place of Strife
", which proposed to give trade unions statutory rights, but also to limit their power. The White Paper was championed by Wilson and Barbara Castle
. The proposals however faced stiff opposition from the Trades Union Congress
, and some key cabinet ministers such as James Callaghan
.
The opponents won the day and the proposals were shelved. This episode proved politically damaging for Wilson, whose approval ratings fell to 26%; the lowest for any Prime Minister since polling began.
In hindsight, many have argued that the failure of the unions to adopt the proposals of In Place of Strife, led to the far more drastic curbs on trade union power under Margaret Thatcher
in the 1980s.
, Edward Heath
's Conservatives narrowly defeated Harold Wilson's government reflecting some disillusionment amongst many who had voted Labour in 1966. The Conservatives quickly ran into difficulties, alienating Ulster Unionists
and many Unionists in their own party after signing the Sunningdale Agreement
in Ulster. Heath's government also faced the 1973 miners strike which forced the government to adopt a "Three-Day Week
". The 1970s proved to be a very difficult time for the Heath, Wilson and Callaghan administrations. Faced with a mishandled oil crisis, a consequent worldwide economic downturn, and a badly suffering British economy.
The 1970s saw tensions re-emerge between Labour's left and right wings, which eventually caused a catastrophic split in the party in the 1980s and the formation of the Social Democratic Party
. Following the perceived disappointments of the 1960s Labour government and the failiures of the 'revisionist' right. The left of the party under Tony Benn
and Michael Foot
became increasingly influential during the early 1970s
The left drew up a radical programme; Labour's Programme 1973, which pledged to bring about a "fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families". This programme referred to a "far reaching Social Contract
between workers and the Government" and called for a major extension of public ownership and state planning. The programme was accepted by that year's party conference. Wilson publicly accepted many of the policies of the Programme with some reservations, but the condition of the economy allowed little room for manoeuvre. In practice many of the proposals of the programme were heavily watered down when Labour returned to government.
, forming a minority government with Ulster Unionist support. The Conservatives were unable to form a government as they had fewer seats, even though they had received more votes. 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 for Labour to gain a majority, a second election was soon called for October 1974
in which Labour, still with Harold Wilson as leader, scraped a majority of three, gaining just 18 seats and taking their total to 319.
(EEC) in 1973 while Edward Heath
was Prime Minister. Although Harold Wilson and the Labour party had opposed this, in government Wilson switched to backing membership, but was defeated in a special one day Labour conference on the issue leading to a national referendum on which the yes and no campaigns were both cross-party - the referendum voted in 1975 to continue Britain's membership by two thirds to one third. This issue later caused catastrophic splits in the Labour Party in the 1980s, leading to the formation of the Social Democratic Party
.
In the initial legislation during the Heath Government, the Bill affirming Britain's entry was only passed because of a rebellion of 72 Labour MPs led by Roy Jenkins
and including future leader John Smith
, who voted against the Labour whip and along with Liberal MPs more than countered the effects of Conservative rebels who had voted against the Conservative Whip.
. He feared following his mother's path: she had been a towering, impressive personality but did not accept her failing abilities and carried on for too long spoiling her reputation. He was replaced by James Callaghan
who immediately removed a number of left-wingers (such as Barbara Castle
) from the cabinet.
In the same year as Callaghan became leader, the party in Scotland
suffered the breakaway of two MPs into the Scottish Labour Party (SLP). Whilst ultimately the SLP proved no real threat to the Labour Party's strong Scottish electoral base it did show that the issue of Scottish devolution
was becoming increasingly contentious, especially after the discovery of North Sea Oil
.
. Many of Britain's traditional manufacturing industries were collapsing in the face of foreign competition. Unemployment, and industrial unrest were rising.
In the autumn of 1976 the Labour Government under Chancellor Denis Healey
was forced to ask the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) for a loan to ease the economy through its financial troubles. The conditions attached to the loan included harsh austerity
measures such as sharp cuts in public spending, which were highly unpopular with party supporters. This forced the government to abandon much of the radical program which it had adopted in the early 1970s, much to the anger of left wingers such as Tony Benn
. It later turned out however that the loan had not been necessary. The error had been caused by incorrect financial estimates by the Treasury
which overestimated public borrowing requirements. The government only drew on half of the loan and was able to pay it back in full by 1979.
The 1970s Labour government adopted an interventionist
approach to the economy, setting up the National Enterprise Board
to channel public investment into industry, and giving state support to ailing industries. Several large nationalisations were carried out during this era: The struggling motor manufacturer British Leyland was partly nationalised in 1975. In 1977 British Aerospace
as well as what remained of the shipbuilding industry
were nationalised, as well as the British National Oil Corporation. The Government also succeeded in replacing the Family Allowance with the more generous child benefit
.
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 meant that by 1977, Callaghan was heading a minority government, and was forced to do deals with other parties to survive. An arrangement was negotiated in 1977 with the Liberals known as the Lib-Lab pact
, but this ended after one year. After this, deals were made with the Scottish National Party
and the Welsh
nationalist Plaid Cymru
, which prolonged the life of the government slightly longer.
The nationalist parties demanded devolution
to their respective countries in return for their support for the government. When referendum
s 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, invalidating the result. This led to the SNP withdrawing support for the government, which finally brought it down.
had caused a legacy of high inflation
in the British economy which peaked at 26.9% in 1975. The Wilson and Callaghan governments attempted to combat this by entering into a social contract
with the trade unions, which introduced wage restraint and limited pay rises to limits set by the government. This policy was initially fairly successful at controlling inflation, which had been reduced to 7.4% by 1978.
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 instead, he 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. The extension of wage restraint was unpopular with the trade unions, and the government's attempt to impose a "5% limit" on pay rises caused resentment amongst workers and trade unions, with whom relations broke down.
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 came to be dubbed as the "Winter of Discontent
".
The perceived relaxed attitude of Callaghan to the crisis reflected badly upon public opinion of the government's ability to run the country. After the withdrawal of SNP support for the government, the Conservatives put down a vote of no confidence, which was held and passed by one vote on 28 March 1979, forcing a general election.
In the 1979 general election
, Labour suffered electoral defeat to the Conservatives
led by Margaret Thatcher
. The numbers 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, mainly from the ailing Liberals, and benefited from a surge in turnout.
The actions of the trade unions during the Winter of Discontent were used by Margaret Thatcher's government to justify anti-trade union legislation during the 1980s.
and Tony Benn
(whose supporters dominated the party organisation at the grassroots level), and the right under Denis Healey
. It was widely considered that Healey would win the 1980 leadership election
, but he was narrowly defeated by Foot.
The Thatcher government was determined not to be deflected from its agenda as the Heath government had been. A deflationary budget in 1980 led to substantial cuts in welfare spending and an initial short-term sharp rise in unemployment. The Conservatives reduced or eliminated state assistance for struggling private industries, leading to large redundancies in many regions of the country, notably in Labour's heartlands. However, Conservative legislation extending the right for residents to buy council houses from the state proved very attractive to many Labour voters. (Labour had previously suggested this idea in their 1970 election manifesto, but had never acted on it.)
The election of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND) veteran Michael Foot to the leadership disturbed many Atlanticists in the Party. Other changes increased their concern; the constituencies were given the ability to easily deselect sitting MPs, and a new voting system in leadership elections was introduced that gave party activists and affiliated trade unions a vote in different parts of an electoral college.
The party's move to the left in the early 80s led to the decision by a number of centrist party members led by the Gang of Four
of former cabinet ministers (Shirley Williams, William Rodgers, Roy Jenkins
, and David Owen
. ) to issue the "Limehouse Declaration
" on January 26, 1981, and to form the breakaway Social Democratic Party
. The departure of even more members from the centre and right further swung the party to the left, but not quite enough to allow Tony Benn to be elected as Deputy Leader when he challenged for the job at the September 1981 party conference.
Under Foot's leadership, the party's agenda became increasingly dominated by the politics of the hard left
. Accordingly, the party went into the 1983 general election
with the most left wing manifesto that Labour ever stood upon. The manifesto contained pledges for abolition of the House of Lords
, unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the European Community, withdrawal from NATO and a radical and extensive extension of state control over the economy.
This alienated many of the party's more right-wing supporters. The Bennites were in the ascendency and there was very little that the right could do to resist or water down the manifesto, many also hoped that a landslide defeat would discredit Michael Foot and the hard left of the party moving Labour away from explicit Socialism and towards weaker social-democracy. Labour MP and former minister Gerald Kaufman
famously described the 1983 election manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history". Michael Foot has countered, with typical wit, that it is telling about Gerald Kaufman that it is likely that his one oft quoted remark will be all that he is remembered for.
Much of the press attacked both the Labour party's manifesto and its style of campaigning, which tended to rely upon public meetings and canvassing rather than media. By contrast, the Conservatives ran a professional campaign which played on the voters' fears of a repeat of the Winter of Discontent. To add to this, the Thatcher government's popularity rose sharply on a wave of patriotic feeling following victory in the Falklands War
, allowing it to recover from it initial unpopularity over unemployment and economic difficulty.
At the 1983 election, Labour suffered a landslide defeat, winning only 27.6% of the vote, their lowest share since 1918
. Labour won only half a million votes more than the SDP-Liberal Alliance
which had attracted the votes of many moderate Labour supporters.
, initially considered a firebrand left-winger, he proved to be more pragmatic than Foot and progressively moved the party towards the centre; banning left-wing groups such as the Militant tendency
and reversing party policy on EEC membership and withdrawal from NATO, bringing in Peter Mandelson
as Director of Communications to modernise the party's image, and embarking on a policy review which reported back in 1985.
At the 1987 general election
, the party was again defeated in a landslide, but had at least re-established itself as the clear challengers to the Conservatives and gained 20 seats reducing the Conservative majority to 102 from 143 in 1983, despite a sharp rise in turnout. Challenged for the leadership by Tony Benn
in 1988, Neil Kinnock easily retained the leadership claiming a mandate for his reforms of the party. Re-organisation resulted in the dissolution of the Labour Party Young Socialists
, which was thought to be harbouring entryist Militant
groups. It also resulted in a more centralised communication structure, enabling a greater degree of flexibility for the leadership to determine policy, react to events, and direct resources.
During this time the Labour Party emphasised the abandonment of its links to high taxation and old-style nationalisation, which aimed to show that the party was moving away from the left of the political spectrum and towards the centre. It also became actively pro-European, supporting further moves to European integration
.
from Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Michael Heseltine
, eventually leaving Labour facing a new Conservative Prime Minister in John Major
.
By the time of the 1992 general election campaign
, the party had reformed to such an extent that it was perceived as a credible government-in-waiting. Most opinion polls showed the party to have a slight lead over the Conservatives, although rarely sufficient for a majority. However, the party ended up 8% behind the Conservatives in the popular vote in one of the biggest surprises in British electoral history. Although Labour's support was comparable to the February and October 1974 and May 1979 General Elections, the overall turnout was much larger.
In the party's post mortem on why it had lost, it was considered that the "Shadow Budget" announced by John Smith
had opened the way for Conservatives to attack the party for wanting to raise taxes. In addition, a triumphalist party rally held in Sheffield
eight days before the election, was generally considered to have backfired. The party had also suffered from a powerfully co-ordinated campaign from the right-wing press, particularly Rupert Murdoch
's The Sun
. Kinnock resigned after the defeat, blaming the Conservative-supporting newspapers for Labour's failure and John Smith
, despite his involvement with the Shadow Budget, was elected to succeed him.
system called OMOV — but only barely, after a barnstorming speech by John Prescott
which required Smith to compromise on other individual negotiations.
However, they benefitted from an increasingly unpopular and divided Conservative government which ran into trouble, when on 'Black Wednesday
' it was forced to leave the European Exchange Rate Mechanism
. After this, Labour moved ahead in the opinion polls as the Conservatives became increasingly unpopular.
John Smith died suddenly in May 1994 from a heart attack, prompting a leadership election for his successor, likely to be the next Prime Minister. With 57% of the vote, Tony Blair
won a resounding victory in a three-way contest with John Prescott and Margaret Beckett
. Prescott became deputy leader, coming second in the poll whose results were announced on 21 July 1994.
published by the party in 1996, called New Labour, New Life For Britain
and presented by Labour as being the brand of the new reformed party that had in 1995 altered Clause IV
and reduced the Trade Union vote in the electoral college used to elect the leader and deputy leader to have equal weighting with individual other parts of the electoral college.
Peter Mandelson
was a senior figure in this process, and exercised a great deal of authority in the party following the death of John Smith
and the subsequent election of Tony Blair
as party leader.
The name is primarily used by the party itself in its literature but is also sometimes used by political commentators and the wider media
; it was also the basis of a Conservative Party
poster campaign of 1997, headlined "New Labour, New Danger". The rise of the name coincided with a rightwards shift of the British political spectrum; for Labour, this was a continuation of the trend that had begun under the leadership of Neil Kinnock
. "Old Labour" is sometimes used by commentators to describe the older, more left-wing members of the party, or those with strong Trade Union connections.
Tony Blair
, Gordon Brown
, Peter Mandelson
, Anthony Giddens
and Alastair Campbell
are most commonly cited as the creators and architects of "New Labour". They were among the most prominent advocates of the shift in European social democracy
during the 1990s, known as the "Third Way
". Although this policy was advantageous to the Labour Party in the eyes of the British electorate, it alienated many grass roots members by distancing itself from the ideals of socialism in favour of free market policy decisions.
The "modernisation" of Labour party policy and the unpopularity of John Major
's Conservative government, along with a well co-ordinated use of PR, greatly increased Labour's appeal to "middle England
". The party was concerned not to put off potential voters who had previously supported the Conservatives, and pledged to keep to the spending plans of the previous government, and not to increase the basic rate of income tax. The party won the 1997 election
with a landslide majority of 179. Following a second and third election victory in the 2001 election
and the 2005 election
, the name has diminished in significance. "New Labour" as a name has no official status but remains in common use to distinguish modernisers from those holding to more traditional positions who normally are referred to as "Old Labour".
Many of the traditional grassroots working-class members of the Labour Party who have become upset and disillusioned with "New" Labour, have left the Party and gone on to join political parties such as the Socialist Party (England and Wales)
, the Socialist Labour Party
and even the Communist Party of Great Britain
- all parties claiming to never neglect the "ordinary British people". David Osler, the journalist and author of "Labour Party plc" seems to hint in his book that Labour's supposed steady shift from Socialism and its neglect of support for the working-class people of Britain began to show during the Party's years under Harold Wilson. In the book, Osler claims that the Party is now only a socialist party and indeed a "Labour" party in name only and is a full-capitalist embracing Party which differs little from the Tory Party. Other historians have also argued that Old Labour’s record in putting its social democratic ideals into practice was less successful than comparable northern European sister parties.
With the unpopularity of John Major's government. Labour party won the 1997 election
with a landslide majority of 179.
Among the early acts of Tony Blair's government were the establishment of the National minimum wage. And devolution of power to Scotland
, Wales
and Northern Ireland
and re-created a city wide government body for London
; the Greater London Authority
.
Labour went on to win the 2001 election
with a similar majority to 1997. Tony Blair controversially allied himself with President George W Bush in supporting the Iraq War, which lost his government much support. At the 2005 election
, Labour was returned to power with a much reduced majority.
In 2007 Tony Blair stood down as prime minister and was replaced by Gordon Brown
.
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
. For information about the wider history of British socialism see History of socialism in Great Britain
History of socialism in Great Britain
The History of socialism in the United Kingdom is generally thought to stretch back to the 19th century. Starting to arise in the aftermath of the English Civil War notions of socialism in Great Britain and Northern Ireland have taken many different forms from the utopian philanthropism of Robert...
.
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
movement and socialist political parties of the 19th century, and surpassed the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
as the main opposition to the Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
in the early 1920s. It has had several spells in government, first as minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
in 1924 and 1929–31, then as a junior partner in the wartime coalition from 1940–1945, and then as a majority government, under Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
in 1945–51 and under Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
in 1964–70. Labour was in government again in 1974–79, under Wilson and then James Callaghan
James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC , was a British Labour politician, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980...
, though with a precarious and declining majority.
The previous national Labour government won a landslide 179 seat majority
Landslide victory
In politics, a landslide victory is the victory of a candidate or political party by an overwhelming margin in an election...
in the 1997 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
under the leadership of Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, its first general election victory since October 1974
United Kingdom general election, October 1974
The United Kingdom general election of October 1974 took place on 10 October 1974 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. It was the second general election of that year and resulted in the Labour Party led by Harold Wilson, winning by a tiny majority of 3 seats.The election of...
and the first general election since 1970
United Kingdom general election, 1970
The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their...
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
United Kingdom general election, 2001
The United Kingdom general election, 2001 was held on Thursday 7 June 2001 to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media, as the Labour Party was re-elected with another landslide result and only suffered a net loss of 6 seats...
and more substantially reduced to 66 in 2005
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
.
Founding of the party
Suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
to working-class males, when it became apparent that there was a need for a political party to represent the interests and needs of those groups. Some members of the trade union movement became interested in moving into the political field, and after the extensions of the franchise in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
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
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
, the Social Democratic Federation
Social Democratic Federation
The Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...
and the Scottish Labour Party.
In the 1895 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 1895
The United Kingdom general election of 1895 was held from 13 July - 7 August 1895. It was won by the Conservatives led by Lord Salisbury who formed an alliance with the Liberal Unionist Party and had a large majority over the Liberals, led by Lord Rosebery...
the Independent Labour Party put up 28 candidates but won only 44,325 votes. Keir Hardie
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
, 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
Doncaster
Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants
Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants
The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants was a trade union of railway workers in the United Kingdom from 1872 until 1913.The ASRS was an industrial union founded in 1871 with the support of the Liberal MP Michael Bass. Its early years were difficult...
, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all the 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, Farringdon Street, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on February 26–27, 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations; trade unions representing 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, 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
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
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. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful: Keir Hardie
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
in Merthyr Tydfil
Merthyr Tydfil (UK Parliament constituency)
Merthyr Tydfil was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Merthyr Tydfil in Glamorgan. From 1832 to 1868 it returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and in 1868 this was increased to two members...
and Richard Bell
Richard Bell (politician)
Richard Bell was one of the first two British Labour Members of Parliament, and the first English one, elected after the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900....
in Derby
Derby (UK Parliament constituency)
Derby is a former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1950. It was represented by two Members of...
.
Support for the LRC was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale Case
Taff Vale Case
Taff Vale Railway Co v Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants [1901] , commonly known as the Taff Vale case is a formative case in UK labour law...
, a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
. 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
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
to industrial and business interests (traditionally the allies of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
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. The LRC won two by-elections in 1902–1903.
United Kingdom general election, 1906
-Seats summary:-See also:*MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1906*The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918-External links:***-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987**...
, the LRC won 29 seats — helped by the secret 1903 pact between Ramsay Macdonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
and Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone, which aimed at avoiding Labour/Liberal contests in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.
In their first meeting after the election, the group's Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name "The Labour Party" (February 15, 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
David Shackleton
Sir David James Shackleton was a cotton worker and trade unionist who became the third Labour Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, following the formation of the Labour Representation Committee. He later became a senior civil servant....
after several ballots. In the party's early years, the Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
(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
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
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.
World War I and the lead up to the first Labour government (1914-1923)
During the First World WarWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
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
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
, a notable anti-war campaigner, resigned as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party and Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson was a British iron moulder and Labour politician. He was the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and he served three short terms as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1908–1910, 1914–1917 and 1931-1932....
became the main figure of authority within the Party and was soon accepted into H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...
's War Cabinet.
Despite mainstream Labour Party's support for the Coalition, the Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
was instrumental in opposing mobilisation through organisations such as the Non-Conscription Fellowship and a Labour Party affiliate, the British Socialist Party
British Socialist Party
The British Socialist Party was a Marxist political organisation established in Great Britain in 1911. Following a protracted period of factional struggle, in 1916 the party's anti-war forces gained decisive control of the party and saw the defection of its pro-war Right Wing...
organised a number of unofficial strikes
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
.
Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson was a British iron moulder and Labour politician. He was the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and he served three short terms as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1908–1910, 1914–1917 and 1931-1932....
resigned from the Cabinet in 1917 amidst calls for Party unity, being replaced by George Barnes
George Nicoll Barnes
George Nicoll Barnes CH PC was a Scottish politician and a leader of the Labour Party.Barnes was born in Lochee, Dundee, the second of five sons of James Barnes, a skilled engineer and mill manager from Yorkshire, and his wife, Catherine Adam Langlands...
. 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
Co-operative Party
The Co-operative Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom committed to supporting and representing co-operative principles. The party does not put up separate candidates for any UK election itself. Instead, Co-operative candidates stand jointly with the Labour Party as "Labour...
after the armistice. The Co-operative Party later reached an electoral agreement with the Labour Party.
The Liberal Party splitting between supporters of leader David Lloyd George and former leader H. H. Asquith
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916...
allowed the Labour Party to co-opt some of the Liberals' support, and by the 1922 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1922
The United Kingdom general election of 1922 was held on 15 November 1922. It was the first election held after most of the Irish counties left the United Kingdom to form the Irish Free State, and was won by Andrew Bonar Law's Conservatives, who gained an overall majority over Labour, led by John...
Labour had supplanted the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
as the second party in the United Kingdom and as the official opposition to the Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
. After the election, the now rehabilitated Ramsay MacDonald was voted the first official leader of the Labour Party.
Labour's electoral base resided in the industrial areas of Northern England
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
, the Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
, central Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. In these areas Labour Clubs were founded to provide recreation for working men, with many of these clubs becoming affiliated to The Working Men's Club and Institute Union. Because of the concentrated geographical nature of Labour's support, industrial downturns tended to hit Labour voters directly. Anecdotal evidence suggests that party membership was often working-class but also included many middle-class radicals, former liberals and socialists. Accordingly, the more middle-class branches in London and the South of England tended to be more left-wing and radical than those in the primary industrial areas.
First Labour governments under Ramsay MacDonald
The first Labour government (1924)
The 1923 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1923
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...
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
Free trade
Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
to be formed. So with the acquiescence of Asquith's Liberals, Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
became Prime Minister in January 1924 and formed the first ever 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
United Kingdom general election, 1924
- Seats summary :- References :* F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987* - External links :* * *...
saw the publication, four days before polling day, of the notorious Zinoviev letter
Zinoviev Letter
The "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain...
, 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.
The General Strike (1926)
The new Conservative government led by Stanley BaldwinStanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars...
faced a number of labour problems most notably the General Strike of 1926
UK General Strike of 1926
The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 May 1926 to 13 May 1926. It was called by the general council of the Trades Union Congress in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening...
. Ramsay MacDonald continued with his policy of opposing strike action
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
, including the General Strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
, arguing that the best way to achieve social reforms was through the ballot box, although Labour claimed that the BBC was biased in its reporting against the party over the issue.
Second Labour government (1929-1931)
The election of May 1929United Kingdom general election, 1929
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...
left the Labour Party for the first time as the largest grouping in the House of Commons with 287 seats, and 37.1% of the popular vote (actually slightly less than the Conservatives). However, MacDonald was still reliant on Liberal support to form a minority government. MacDonald's government included the first ever woman cabinet minister Margaret Bondfield
Margaret Bondfield
Margaret Grace Bondfield was an English Labour politician and feminist, the first woman Cabinet minister in the United Kingdom and one of the first three female Labour MPs...
who was appointed Minister of Labour
Secretary of State for Employment
The Secretary of State for Employment was a position in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. In 1995 it was merged with Secretary of State for Education to make the Secretary of State for Education and Employment...
.
MacDonald's second government was in a stronger parliamentary position than his first, and in 1930 he was able to pass a revised Old Age Pensions Act, a more generous Unemployment Insurance Act, and an act to improve wages and conditions in the coal industry (i.e. the issues behind the General Strike).
Great Depression and the split under MacDonald
The Wall Street Crash of 1929Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
and eventual Great Depression
Great Depression in the United Kingdom
The Great Depression in the United Kingdom, also known as the Great Slump, was a period of national economic downturn in the 1930s, which had its origins in the global 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 Labour government struggled to cope with the crisis and found itself attempting to reconcile two contradictory aims; achieving a balanced budget in order to maintain the pound
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
on the Gold Standard
Gold standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
, whilst also trying to maintain assistance to the poor and unemployed. All of this whilst tax revenues were falling. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
, Philip Snowden refused to permit deficit spending
Deficit spending
Deficit spending is the amount by which a government, private company, or individual's spending exceeds income over a particular period of time, also called simply "deficit," or "budget deficit," the opposite of budget surplus....
.
One junior minister, Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
, put forward a memorandum in January 1930, calling for the public control of imports and banking as well as an increase in pensions to boost spending power. When this was repeatedly turned down, Mosley resigned from the government in February 1931 and went on to form the New Party, and later the British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
after he converted to Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
.
By 1931 the situation had deteriorated further. Under pressure from its Liberal allies as well as the Conservative opposition who feared that the budget was unbalanced, the Labour government appointed a committee headed by Sir George May
George May, 1st Baron May
George Ernest May, 1st Baron May KBE , known as Sir George May, 1st Baronet, from 1931 to 1945, was a British financial expert and public servant....
to review the state of public finances. The May Report
May Report
The May Report was the publication on 31 July 1931 of the views of the Committee on National Expenditure chaired by Sir George May.-Background:...
of July 1931 urged public-sector wage cuts and large cuts in public spending (notably in payments to the unemployed) in order to avoid a budget deficit.
This proposal proved deeply unpopular within the Labour Party grass roots and the trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s, which along with several government ministers, refused to support any such measures. Several senior ministers such as Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson was a British iron moulder and Labour politician. He was the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and he served three short terms as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1908–1910, 1914–1917 and 1931-1932....
and J. R. Clynes threatened to resign rather than agree to the cuts. MacDonald, and Philip Snowden however, insisted that the Report's recommendations must be adopted to avoid incurring a budget deficit.
The dispute over spending and wage cuts split the Labour government; as it turned out, fatally. The cabinet repeatedly failed to agree to make cuts to spending or introduce tariffs. The resulting political deadlock caused investors to take fright, and a flight of capital and gold further de-stabilised the economy. In response, MacDonald, on the urging of King George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
, agreed to form a National Government, with the Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
and the Liberals.
On August 24, 1931 MacDonald submitted the resignation of his ministers and led a small number of his senior colleagues, most notably Snowden and Dominions Secretary J. H. Thomas
James Henry Thomas
James Henry "Jimmy" Thomas was a British trade unionist and Labour politician. He was involved in a political scandal involving budget leaks.-Early career and Trade Union activities:...
, in forming the National Government with the other parties. MacDonald and his supporters were then expelled from the Labour Party and formed National Labour. The remaining Labour Party, now led by Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson was a British iron moulder and Labour politician. He was the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and he served three short terms as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1908–1910, 1914–1917 and 1931-1932....
, and a few Liberals went into opposition.
Soon after this, a General Election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...
was called. The 1931 election
United Kingdom general election, 1931
The United Kingdom general election on Tuesday 27 October 1931 was the last in the United Kingdom not held on a Thursday. It was also the last election, and the only one under universal suffrage, where one party received an absolute majority of the votes cast.The 1931 general election was the...
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.
MacDonald continued as Prime Minister of the Conservative dominated National Government until 1935. MacDonald's actions in ditching the Labour government to form a coalition with the Conservatives, led to him being denounced by the Labour Party as a "traitor" and a "rat" for what they saw as his betrayal.
Opposition during the time of the National Government
Arthur HendersonArthur Henderson
Arthur Henderson was a British iron moulder and Labour politician. He was the 1934 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and he served three short terms as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1908–1910, 1914–1917 and 1931-1932....
, who had been elected in 1931 as Labour leader to succeed MacDonald, lost his seat in the 1931 General Election. The only former Labour cabinet member who survived the landslide was the pacifist George Lansbury
George Lansbury
George Lansbury was a British politician, socialist, Christian pacifist and newspaper editor. He was a Member of Parliament from 1910 to 1912 and from 1922 to 1940, and leader of the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935....
, who accordingly became party leader.
The party experienced a further split in 1932 when the Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
, 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. The role of the ILP within the Labour Party was taken up for a time by the Socialist League
Socialist League (UK, 1932)
The Socialist League was a socialist organisation in the United Kingdom.It formed in the 1932 as a split from the Independent Labour Party, opposed to that organisation disaffiliating from the Labour Party. It was led by Stafford Cripps. The League argued for drastic action to be taken by a future...
led by Stafford Cripps
Stafford Cripps
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was a British Labour politician of the first half of the 20th century. During World War II he served in a number of positions in the wartime coalition, including Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Minister of Aircraft Production...
, until it was wound up in 1937.
The Labour Party moved to the left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
during the early 1930s. The party's programme "For Socialism and Peace" adopted in 1934, committed the party to nationalisation of land, banking, coal, iron and steel, transport, power and water supply, as well as the setting up of a National Investment Board to plan industrial development.
Public disagreements between Lansbury and many Labour Party members over foreign policy, notably in relation to Lansbury's opposition to applying sanctions against Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
for its aggression against Abyssinia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, caused Lansbury to resign during the 1935 Labour Party Conference. He was succeeded by his deputy Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
, who achieved a revival in Labour's fortunes in the 1935 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 1935
The United Kingdom general election held on 14 November 1935 resulted in a large, though reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Conservative Stanley Baldwin. The greatest number of MPs, as before, were Conservative, while the National Liberal vote held steady...
, winning a similar number of votes to those attained in 1929 and actually, at 38% of the popular vote, the highest percentage that Labour had ever achieved, securing 154 seats. Attlee was initially regarded as a caretaker leader, however he turned out to be the longest serving party leader to date, and one of its most successful.
With the rising threat from Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in the 1930s, the Labour Party gradually abandoned its earlier pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
stance, and came out in favour of rearmament. This shift largely came about due to the efforts of Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...
and Hugh Dalton
Hugh Dalton
Edward Hugh John Neale Dalton, Baron Dalton PC was a British Labour Party politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1945 to 1947, when he was implicated in a political scandal involving budget leaks....
who by 1937 also persuaded the party to oppose Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
's policy of appeasement
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
.
Labour achieved a number of by-election upsets in the later part of the 1930s despite the world depression having come to an end and unemployment falling.
Wartime Coalition
When Neville ChamberlainNeville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
resigned as Prime Minister after the defeat in Norway in spring 1940, incoming Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
decided that it was important to bring the other main parties into the government and have a Wartime Coalition similar to that in the First World War. Labour took two of the five seats in the War Cabinet. Clement Attlee became Lord Privy Seal
Lord Privy Seal
The Lord Privy Seal is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. The office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state...
and was effectively (and eventually formally) Deputy Prime Minister
Deputy Prime Minister
A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some counties, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, but is significantly different, though both...
for the remainder of the duration of the War in Europe. Labour deputy leader Arthur Greenwood
Arthur Greenwood
Arthur Greenwood CH was a prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s. He rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department from 1920 and served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the short-lived Labour government of 1924...
took the other War Cabinet seat as Minister without Portfolio, given special responsibility for planning post-war reconstruction.
A number of other senior Labour figure took up senior positions: the trade union leader Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...
as Minister of Labour
Secretary of State for Employment
The Secretary of State for Employment was a position in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. In 1995 it was merged with Secretary of State for Education to make the Secretary of State for Education and Employment...
directed Britain's wartime economy and allocation of manpower; the veteran Labour statesman Herbert Morrison
Herbert Morrison
Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, CH, PC was a British Labour politician; he held a various number of senior positions in the Cabinet, including Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.-Early life:Morrison was the son of a police constable and was born in...
became Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
; Hugh Dalton
Hugh Dalton
Edward Hugh John Neale Dalton, Baron Dalton PC was a British Labour Party politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1945 to 1947, when he was implicated in a political scandal involving budget leaks....
was Minister of Economic Warfare
Minister of Economic Warfare
The Minister of Economic Warfare was a British government position which existed during the Second World War. The minister was in charge of the Special Operations Executive.-Ministers of Economic Warfare 1939-1945:...
and later President of the Board of Trade; and A. V. Alexander
A. V. Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough
Albert Victor Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough KG, CH, PC was a British Labour Co-operative politician. He was three times First Lord of the Admiralty, including during the Second World War, and then Minister of Defence under Clement Attlee.-Background:Born in Weston-super-Mare and...
resumed the role of First Lord of the Admiralty he had held in the previous Labour government. The party generally performed well in government, and its experience 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' error of 1918, and withdrew from the government to contest the 1945 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...
(July 5) 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.
Although the exact reasons for the victory are still debated. During the war, public opinion surveys showed public opinion moving to the left and in favour of radical social reform. There was little public appetite for a return to the poverty and mass unemployment of the interwar years which had become associated with the Conservatives.
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...
, coal mining
National Coal Board
The National Coal Board was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the mines on "vesting day", 1 January 1947...
, the steel industry
Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain
The Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain was a nationalised industry, set up in 1949 by Clement Attlee's Labour government.The Iron & Steel Act 1949 took effect on 15 February 1951, the Corporation becoming the sole shareholder of 80 of the principal iron and steel companies...
, electricity, gas, telephones, and inland transport (including the railways, road haulage and canals). It developed the "cradle to grave" welfare state
Welfare state
A welfare state is a "concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those...
conceived by the Liberal economist William Beveridge
William Beveridge
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge KCB was a British economist and social reformer. He is best known for his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services which served as the basis for the post-World War II welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.Lord...
. To this day, the party still considers the creation in 1948 of Britain's publicly funded
Publicly-funded health care
Publicly funded health care is a form of health care financing designed to meet the cost of all or most health care needs from a publicly managed fund. Usually this is under some form of democratic accountability, the right of access to which are set down in rules applying to the whole population...
National Health Service
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
under health minister Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin "Nye" Bevan was a British Labour Party politician who was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1959 until his death in 1960. The son of a coal miner, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people...
its proudest achievement.
Attlee's government also began the process of dismantling the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
when it granted independence to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
in 1947. This was followed by Burma (Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
) the following year.
With the onset of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, at a secret meeting in January 1947, Attlee, and six cabinet ministers including foreign minister Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...
, 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 won the 1950 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1950
The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first general election ever after a full term of a Labour government. Despite polling over one and a half million votes more than the Conservatives, the election, held on 23 February 1950 resulted in Labour receiving a slim majority of just five...
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 14% of GDP in 1951 during the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
). These costs put enormous strain on public finances, forcing savings to be found elsewhere. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
, Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...
introduced prescription charges for NHS prescriptions
Prescription drug
A prescription medication is a licensed medicine that is regulated by legislation to require a medical prescription before it can be obtained. The term is used to distinguish it from over-the-counter drugs which can be obtained without a prescription...
, causing Bevan, along with Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
(President of the Board of Trade) to resign over the dilution of the principle of free treatment.
Soon after this, another election was called. Labour narrowly lost the October 1951 election
United Kingdom general election, 1951
The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held eighteen months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats...
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 however were accepted by the Conservatives and became part of the "post war consensus", which lasted until the 1970s.
The "Thirteen Wasted Years"
Following the defeat in 1951, the party became split over the future direction of socialism. The "GaitskelliteGaitskellism
Gaitskellism was the ideology of a faction of the British Labour Party. Led by Hugh Gaitskell, Gaitskellites represented the political right of the Labour Party and were opposed by the Bevanites, a more Leftist faction of the party led by Aneurin Bevan...
" right of the party led by Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...
and associated with thinkers such as Anthony Crosland
Anthony Crosland
Charles Anthony Raven Crosland , otherwise Tony Crosland or C.A.R. Crosland, was a British Labour Party politician and author. He served as Member of Parliament for South Gloucestershire and later for Great Grimsby...
wanted the party to adopt a moderate social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
position. Whereas the "Bevanite
Bevanism
Bevanism was the ideological argument for the Bevanites, a movement on the Left wing of the Labour Party in the late 1950s and led by Nye Bevan. They were opposed by the Gaitskellites, who are variously described as Centre-left, Social Democrats, or 'moderates' within the Party.Bevanism was...
" left, led by Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin Bevan
Aneurin "Nye" Bevan was a British Labour Party politician who was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1959 until his death in 1960. The son of a coal miner, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people...
wanted the party to adopt a more radical socialist position. This split, and the fact that the 1950s saw economic recovery and general public contentment with the Conservative governments of the time, helped keep the party out of power for thirteen years
After being defeated at the 1955 general election, Attlee resigned as leader and was replaced by Gaitskell. The trade union block vote, which generally voted with the leadership, ensured that the bevanites were eventually defeated.
The three key divisive issues that were to split the Labour party in successive decades emerged first during this period; nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated....
, the famous Clause IV
Clause IV
Clause IV historically refers to part of the 1918 text of the British Labour Party constitution which set out the aims and values of the party. Before its revision in 1995, its application was the subject of considerable dispute.-Text:...
of the party's constitution, which called for the ultimate nationalisation of all means of production in the British economy, and Britain's entry into the European Economic Community
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...
(EEC). Tensions between the two opposing sides were exacerbated after Attlee resigned as leader in 1955 and Gaitskell defeated Bevan in the leadership election that followed. The party was briefly revived and unified during the Suez Crisis
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...
of 1956. The Conservative party was badly damaged by the incident while Labour was rejuvenated by its opposition to the policy of prime minister Anthony Eden
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...
. But Eden was replaced by Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
, while the economy continued to improve.
In the 1959 election the Conservatives fought under the slogan "Life is better with the Conservatives, don't let Labour ruin it" and the result saw the government majority increase. Following the election bitter internecine disputes resumed. Gaitskell blamed the Left for the defeat and attempted unsuccessfully to amend Clause IV. At a hostile party conference in 1960 he failed to prevent a vote adopting unilateral nuclear disarmament as a party policy, declaring in response that he would "fight, fight and fight again to save the party I love". The decision was reversed the following year, but it remained a divisive issue, and many in the left continued to call for a change of leadership.
When the Conservative government attempted to take Britain into the EEC in 1962, Gaitskell alienated some of his supporters by his opposition to British membership. In a speech to the party conference in October 1962 Gaitskell claimed that EEC membership would mean "the end of Britain as an independent European state. I make no apology for repeating it. It means the end of a thousand years of history".
Gaitskell died suddenly in January 1963 from a rare disease. His death made way for Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
to lead the party. The term "thirteen wasted years" was coined by Wilson as a slogan for the 1964 general election, in reference to what he claimed were thirteen wasted years of Conservative government.
The Wilson Years
Profumo Affair
The Profumo Affair was a 1963 British political scandal named after John Profumo, Secretary of State for War. His affair with Christine Keeler, the reputed mistress of an alleged Russian spy, followed by lying in the House of Commons when he was questioned about it, forced the resignation of...
), 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
United Kingdom general election, 1964
The United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on 15 October 1964, more than five years after the preceding election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had retaken power...
, and increased their majority to 96 in 1966 election
United Kingdom general election, 1966
The 1966 United Kingdom general election on 31 March 1966 was called by sitting Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Wilson's decision to call an election turned on the fact that his government, elected a mere 17 months previously in 1964 had an unworkably small majority of only 4 MPs...
remaining in power until the 1970 election
United Kingdom general election, 1970
The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their...
which, contrary to expectations during the campaign, they lost.
Economic policies
The 1960s Labour government had a different emphasis from its 1940s predecessor. Harold WilsonHarold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
put faith in economic planning
Economic planning
Economic planning refers to any directing or planning of economic activity outside the mechanisisms of the market, in an attempt to achieve specific economic or social outcomes. Planning is an economic mechanism for resource allocation and decision-making in contrast with the market mechanism...
as a way to solve Britain's economic problems. Wilson famously referred to the "white heat of technology", referring to the modernisation of British industry. This was to be achieved through the swift adoption of new technology, aided by government-funded infrastructure improvements and the creation of large high-tech public sector corporations guided by a Ministry of Technology. Economic planning through the new Department of Economic Affairs
Secretary of State for Economic Affairs
The Secretary of State for Economic Affairs was briefly an office of Her Majesty's government in the United Kingdom. It was established by Harold Wilson in October 1964...
was to improve the trade balance, whilst Labour carefully targeted taxation aimed at "luxury" goods and services.
In practice however, Labour had difficulty managing the economy under the "Keynesian consensus" and the international markets instinctively mistrusted the party. Events derailed much of the initial optimism. Upon coming to power, the government was informed that the trade deficit was far worse than expected. This soon led to a currency crisis
Currency crisis
A currency crisis, which is also called a balance-of-payments crisis, is a sudden devaluation of a currency caused by chronic balance-of-payments deficits which usually ends in a speculative attack in the foreign exchange market. It occurs when the value of a currency changes quickly, undermining...
; despite enormous efforts to shore up the value of sterling, in November 1967 the government was forced into devaluation
Devaluation
Devaluation is a reduction in the value of a currency with respect to those goods, services or other monetary units with which that currency can be exchanged....
of the pound from $2.80 to $2.40, which damaged the government's credibility.
For much of the remaining Parliament the government followed stricter controls in public spending and the necessary austerity measures caused consternation amongst the Party membership and the trade unions, unions which by this time were gaining ever greater political power.
In the event, the devaluation, and austerity measures successfully restored the balance of payments into a surplus by 1969. However, they unexpectedly turned into a small deficit again in 1970. The bad figures were announced just before polling in the 1970 general election, and are often cited as one of the reasons for Labour's defeat.
As a gesture towards Labour's left wing supporters. Wilson's government renationalised the steel industry in 1967 (which had been denationalised by the Conservatives in the 1950s) creating British Steel
British Steel
British Steel was a major British steel producer. It originated as a nationalised industry, the British Steel Corporation , formed in 1967. This was converted to a public limited company, British Steel PLC, and privatised in 1988. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index...
.
Social and educational reforms
The 1960s Labour government is probably most remembered for the liberalLiberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
social reforms introduced or supported by Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
Roy Jenkins
Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...
. Notable amongst these was the legalisation of male homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, reform of divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
laws, the abolition of theatre censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
and capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
(except for a small number of offences - notably high treason
High treason in the United Kingdom
Under the law of the United Kingdom, high treason is the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. Offences constituting high treason include plotting the murder of the sovereign; having sexual intercourse with the sovereign's consort, with his eldest unmarried daughter, or with the wife of the heir to the...
) and various legislation addressing race relations and racial discrimination.
In Wilson's defence, his supporters also emphasise the easing of means testing for non-contributory welfare benefits, the linking of pensions to earnings, and the provision of industrial-injury benefits. Wilson's government also made significant reforms to education
Education in the United Kingdom
Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under separate governments: the UK Government is responsible for England, and the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are...
, most notably the expansion of comprehensive education and the creation of the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
.
In spite of the economic difficulties faced by Wilson's government, it was thereforeable to achieve important advances in a number of domestic policy areas. As reflected by Harold Wilson in 1971,
"It was a government which faced disappointment after disappointment and none greater than the economic restraints in our ability to carry through the social revolution to which we were committed at the speed we would have wished. Yet, despite those restraints and the need to transfer resources from domestic expenditure, private and public, to the needs of our export markets, we carried through an expansion in the social services, health, welfare and housing, unparallelled in our history".
In Place of Strife
Wilson's government in 1969 proposed a series of reforms to the legal basis for industrial relations (labour law) in the UK, which were outlined in a White PaperWhite paper
A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to...
entitled "In Place of Strife
In Place of Strife
In Place of Strife was a UK Government white paper written in 1969. It was a proposed act to alter the functionality of trade unions in the United Kingdom, but was never passed into law....
", which proposed to give trade unions statutory rights, but also to limit their power. The White Paper was championed by Wilson and Barbara Castle
Barbara Castle
Barbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn , PC, GCOT was a British Labour Party politician....
. The proposals however faced stiff opposition from the Trades Union Congress
Trades Union Congress
The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...
, and some key cabinet ministers such as James Callaghan
James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC , was a British Labour politician, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980...
.
The opponents won the day and the proposals were shelved. This episode proved politically damaging for Wilson, whose approval ratings fell to 26%; the lowest for any Prime Minister since polling began.
In hindsight, many have argued that the failure of the unions to adopt the proposals of In Place of Strife, led to the far more drastic curbs on trade union power under Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
in the 1980s.
The 1970s
In the 1970 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1970
The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their...
, Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
's Conservatives narrowly defeated Harold Wilson's government reflecting some disillusionment amongst many who had voted Labour in 1966. The Conservatives quickly ran into difficulties, alienating Ulster Unionists
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
and many Unionists in their own party after signing the Sunningdale Agreement
Sunningdale Agreement
The Sunningdale Agreement was an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland. The Agreement was signed at the Civil Service College in Sunningdale Park located in Sunningdale, Berkshire, on 9 December 1973.Unionist opposition, violence and...
in Ulster. Heath's government also faced the 1973 miners strike which forced the government to adopt a "Three-Day Week
Three-Day Week
The Three-Day Week was one of several measures introduced in the United Kingdom by the Conservative Government 1970–1974 to conserve electricity, the production of which was severely limited due to industrial action by coal miners...
". The 1970s proved to be a very difficult time for the Heath, Wilson and Callaghan administrations. Faced with a mishandled oil crisis, a consequent worldwide economic downturn, and a badly suffering British economy.
The 1970s saw tensions re-emerge between Labour's left and right wings, which eventually caused a catastrophic split in the party in the 1980s and the formation of the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (UK)
The Social Democratic Party was a political party in the United Kingdom that was created on 26 March 1981 and existed until 1988. It was founded by four senior Labour Party 'moderates', dubbed the 'Gang of Four': Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams...
. Following the perceived disappointments of the 1960s Labour government and the failiures of the 'revisionist' right. The left of the party under Tony Benn
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...
and Michael Foot
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL, PC was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992...
became increasingly influential during the early 1970s
The left drew up a radical programme; Labour's Programme 1973, which pledged to bring about a "fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families". This programme referred to a "far reaching Social Contract
Social contract
The social contract is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. Social contract arguments assert that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept...
between workers and the Government" and called for a major extension of public ownership and state planning. The programme was accepted by that year's party conference. Wilson publicly accepted many of the policies of the Programme with some reservations, but the condition of the economy allowed little room for manoeuvre. In practice many of the proposals of the programme were heavily watered down when Labour returned to government.
Return to power in 1974
Labour returned to power again under Wilson a few weeks after the February 1974 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, February 1974
The United Kingdom's general election of February 1974 was held on the 28th of that month. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, and the first election since the Second World War not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for the winning party,...
, forming a minority government with Ulster Unionist support. The Conservatives were unable to form a government as they had fewer seats, even though they had received more votes. 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 for Labour to gain a majority, a second election was soon called for October 1974
United Kingdom general election, October 1974
The United Kingdom general election of October 1974 took place on 10 October 1974 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. It was the second general election of that year and resulted in the Labour Party led by Harold Wilson, winning by a tiny majority of 3 seats.The election of...
in which Labour, still with Harold Wilson as leader, scraped a majority of three, gaining just 18 seats and taking their total to 319.
European referendum
Britain had entered the European Economic CommunityEuropean Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...
(EEC) in 1973 while Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
was Prime Minister. Although Harold Wilson and the Labour party had opposed this, in government Wilson switched to backing membership, but was defeated in a special one day Labour conference on the issue leading to a national referendum on which the yes and no campaigns were both cross-party - the referendum voted in 1975 to continue Britain's membership by two thirds to one third. This issue later caused catastrophic splits in the Labour Party in the 1980s, leading to the formation of the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (UK)
The Social Democratic Party was a political party in the United Kingdom that was created on 26 March 1981 and existed until 1988. It was founded by four senior Labour Party 'moderates', dubbed the 'Gang of Four': Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams...
.
In the initial legislation during the Heath Government, the Bill affirming Britain's entry was only passed because of a rebellion of 72 Labour MPs led by Roy Jenkins
Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...
and including future leader John Smith
John Smith (UK politician)
John Smith was a British Labour Party politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994...
, who voted against the Labour whip and along with Liberal MPs more than countered the effects of Conservative rebels who had voted against the Conservative Whip.
Wilson steps down
In April 1976 Wilson surprisingly stood down as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister claiming a long-standing desire to retire on his sixtieth birthday. There was immense suspicion of his reason for his resignation but it is now known that he was in the early stages of Alzheimer'sAlzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
. He feared following his mother's path: she had been a towering, impressive personality but did not accept her failing abilities and carried on for too long spoiling her reputation. He was replaced by James Callaghan
James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC , was a British Labour politician, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980...
who immediately removed a number of left-wingers (such as Barbara Castle
Barbara Castle
Barbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn , PC, GCOT was a British Labour Party politician....
) from the cabinet.
In the same year as Callaghan became leader, the party in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
suffered the breakaway of two MPs into the Scottish Labour Party (SLP). Whilst ultimately the SLP proved no real threat to the Labour Party's strong Scottish electoral base it did show that the issue of Scottish devolution
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
was becoming increasingly contentious, especially after the discovery of North Sea Oil
North Sea oil
North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid oil and natural gas, produced from oil reservoirs beneath the North Sea.In the oil industry, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian Sea and the area known as "West of Shetland", "the Atlantic Frontier" or "the...
.
Economic and political troubles
The 1970s Labour government faced enormous economic problems and a precarious political situation. Faced with a global recession and spiralling inflationInflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
. Many of Britain's traditional manufacturing industries were collapsing in the face of foreign competition. Unemployment, and industrial unrest were rising.
In the autumn of 1976 the Labour Government under Chancellor Denis Healey
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey CH, MBE, PC is a British Labour politician, who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979.-Early life:...
was forced to ask the International Monetary Fund
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
(IMF) for a loan to ease the economy through its financial troubles. The conditions attached to the loan included harsh austerity
Austerity
In economics, austerity is a policy of deficit-cutting, lower spending, and a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided. Austerity policies are often used by governments to reduce their deficit spending while sometimes coupled with increases in taxes to pay back creditors to...
measures such as sharp cuts in public spending, which were highly unpopular with party supporters. This forced the government to abandon much of the radical program which it had adopted in the early 1970s, much to the anger of left wingers such as Tony Benn
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...
. It later turned out however that the loan had not been necessary. The error had been caused by incorrect financial estimates by the Treasury
HM Treasury
HM Treasury, in full Her Majesty's Treasury, informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy...
which overestimated public borrowing requirements. The government only drew on half of the loan and was able to pay it back in full by 1979.
The 1970s Labour government adopted an interventionist
Economic interventionism
Economic interventionism is an action taken by a government in a market economy or market-oriented mixed economy, beyond the basic regulation of fraud and enforcement of contracts, in an effort to affect its own economy...
approach to the economy, setting up the National Enterprise Board
National Enterprise Board
-History:The National Enterprise Board was set up in the United Kingdom in 1975 to implement the Wilson Labour government's objective of extending public ownership of industry...
to channel public investment into industry, and giving state support to ailing industries. Several large nationalisations were carried out during this era: The struggling motor manufacturer British Leyland was partly nationalised in 1975. In 1977 British Aerospace
British Aerospace
British Aerospace plc was a UK aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was in the Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire...
as well as what remained of the shipbuilding industry
British Shipbuilders
British Shipbuilders Corporation was a public corporation that owned and managed the shipbuilding industry in England and Scotland from 1977 and through the 1980s...
were nationalised, as well as the British National Oil Corporation. The Government also succeeded in replacing the Family Allowance with the more generous child benefit
Child benefit
Child benefit is a social security payment disbursed to the parents or guardians of children. Child benefit is means-tested in some countries.-Australia:...
.
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 meant that by 1977, Callaghan was heading a minority government, and was forced to do deals with other parties to survive. An arrangement was negotiated in 1977 with the Liberals known as the Lib-Lab pact
Lib-Lab pact
In British politics, a Lib-Lab pact is a working arrangement between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party.There have been four such arrangements, and one alleged proposal, at the national level...
, but this ended after one year. After this, deals were made with the Scottish National Party
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party is a social-democratic political party in Scotland which campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom....
and the Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
nationalist Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru
' is a political party in Wales. It advocates the establishment of an independent Welsh state within the European Union. was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in 1966...
, which prolonged the life of the government slightly longer.
The nationalist parties demanded devolution
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
to their respective countries in return for their support for the government. When referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
s 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, invalidating the result. This led to the SNP withdrawing support for the government, which finally brought it down.
The "Winter of Discontent" and defeat by Margaret Thatcher
The 1973 oil crisis1973 oil crisis
The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974. With the...
had caused a legacy of high inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
in the British economy which peaked at 26.9% in 1975. The Wilson and Callaghan governments attempted to combat this by entering into a social contract
Social contract
The social contract is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. Social contract arguments assert that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept...
with the trade unions, which introduced wage restraint and limited pay rises to limits set by the government. This policy was initially fairly successful at controlling inflation, which had been reduced to 7.4% by 1978.
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 instead, he 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. The extension of wage restraint was unpopular with the trade unions, and the government's attempt to impose a "5% limit" on pay rises caused resentment amongst workers and trade unions, with whom relations broke down.
During the winter of 1978-79 there were widespread strikes
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
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 came to be dubbed as the "Winter of Discontent
Winter of Discontent
The "Winter of Discontent" is an expression, popularised by the British media, referring to the winter of 1978–79 in the United Kingdom, during which there were widespread strikes by local authority trade unions demanding larger pay rises for their members, because the Labour government of...
".
The perceived relaxed attitude of Callaghan to the crisis reflected badly upon public opinion of the government's ability to run the country. After the withdrawal of SNP support for the government, the Conservatives put down a vote of no confidence, which was held and passed by one vote on 28 March 1979, forcing a general election.
In the 1979 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1979
The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats...
, Labour suffered electoral defeat to the Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
led by Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
. The numbers 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, mainly from the ailing Liberals, and benefited from a surge in turnout.
The actions of the trade unions during the Winter of Discontent were used by Margaret Thatcher's government to justify anti-trade union legislation during the 1980s.
Michael Foot era
The aftermath of the 1979 election defeat saw a period of bitter internal rivalry in the Labour Party which had become increasingly divided between the ever more dominant left wingers under Michael FootMichael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL, PC was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992...
and Tony Benn
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...
(whose supporters dominated the party organisation at the grassroots level), and the right under Denis Healey
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey CH, MBE, PC is a British Labour politician, who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979.-Early life:...
. It was widely considered that Healey would win the 1980 leadership election
Labour Party (UK) leadership election, 1980
The British Labour Party leadership election of 1980 was held following the resignation of James Callaghan. Callaghan had been Prime Minister 1976—1979 and had stayed on as leader of the Labour Party for eighteen months in order to oversee an orderly transition to his favoured successor, Denis...
, but he was narrowly defeated by Foot.
The Thatcher government was determined not to be deflected from its agenda as the Heath government had been. A deflationary budget in 1980 led to substantial cuts in welfare spending and an initial short-term sharp rise in unemployment. The Conservatives reduced or eliminated state assistance for struggling private industries, leading to large redundancies in many regions of the country, notably in Labour's heartlands. However, Conservative legislation extending the right for residents to buy council houses from the state proved very attractive to many Labour voters. (Labour had previously suggested this idea in their 1970 election manifesto, but had never acted on it.)
The election of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
(CND) veteran Michael Foot to the leadership disturbed many Atlanticists in the Party. Other changes increased their concern; the constituencies were given the ability to easily deselect sitting MPs, and a new voting system in leadership elections was introduced that gave party activists and affiliated trade unions a vote in different parts of an electoral college.
The party's move to the left in the early 80s led to the decision by a number of centrist party members led by the Gang of Four
Gang of Four (disambiguation)
-Australia:* In Australian politics, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan and Lindsay Tanner* Australian Democrats Senators, Lyn Allison, John Cherry , Andrew Murray and Aden Ridgeway-China:...
of former cabinet ministers (Shirley Williams, William Rodgers, Roy Jenkins
Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...
, and David Owen
David Owen
David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen CH PC FRCP is a British politician.Owen served as British Foreign Secretary from 1977 to 1979, the youngest person in over forty years to hold the post; he co-authored the failed Vance-Owen and Owen-Stoltenberg peace plans offered during the Bosnian War...
. ) to issue the "Limehouse Declaration
Limehouse Declaration
The Limehouse Declaration was a statement issued on 25 January 1981 by four senior British Labour politicians, all MPs or former MPs and Cabinet Ministers: Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams...
" on January 26, 1981, and to form the breakaway Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (UK)
The Social Democratic Party was a political party in the United Kingdom that was created on 26 March 1981 and existed until 1988. It was founded by four senior Labour Party 'moderates', dubbed the 'Gang of Four': Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams...
. The departure of even more members from the centre and right further swung the party to the left, but not quite enough to allow Tony Benn to be elected as Deputy Leader when he challenged for the job at the September 1981 party conference.
Under Foot's leadership, the party's agenda became increasingly dominated by the politics of the hard left
Hard left
Hard left is a name often given to an internal tendency within the British Labour Party. Similar terminology is used also in the context of the Australian Labor Party....
. Accordingly, the party went into the 1983 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1983
The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945...
with the most left wing manifesto that Labour ever stood upon. The manifesto contained pledges for abolition of the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
, unilateral nuclear disarmament, withdrawal from the European Community, withdrawal from NATO and a radical and extensive extension of state control over the economy.
This alienated many of the party's more right-wing supporters. The Bennites were in the ascendency and there was very little that the right could do to resist or water down the manifesto, many also hoped that a landslide defeat would discredit Michael Foot and the hard left of the party moving Labour away from explicit Socialism and towards weaker social-democracy. Labour MP and former minister Gerald Kaufman
Gerald Kaufman
Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman is a British Labour Party politician, who has been a Member of Parliament since 1970, first for Manchester Ardwick, and then subsequently for Manchester Gorton...
famously described the 1983 election manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history". Michael Foot has countered, with typical wit, that it is telling about Gerald Kaufman that it is likely that his one oft quoted remark will be all that he is remembered for.
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
, allowing it to recover from it initial unpopularity over unemployment and economic difficulty.
At the 1983 election, Labour suffered a landslide defeat, winning only 27.6% of the vote, their lowest share since 1918
United Kingdom general election, 1918
The United Kingdom general election of 1918 was the first to be held after the Representation of the People Act 1918, which meant it was the first United Kingdom general election in which nearly all adult men and some women could vote. Polling was held on 14 December 1918, although the count did...
. Labour won only half a million votes more than the SDP-Liberal Alliance
SDP-Liberal Alliance
The SDP–Liberal Alliance was an electoral pact formed by the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom which was in existence from 1981 to 1988, when the bulk of the two parties merged to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, later referred to as simply the Liberal...
which had attracted the votes of many moderate Labour supporters.
Neil Kinnock
Michael Foot immediately resigned and was replaced by Neil KinnockNeil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock is a Welsh politician belonging to the Labour Party. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995 and as Labour Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition from 1983 until 1992 - his leadership of the party during nearly nine years making him...
, initially considered a firebrand left-winger, he proved to be more pragmatic than Foot and progressively moved the party towards the centre; banning left-wing groups such as the Militant tendency
Militant Tendency
The Militant tendency was an entrist group within the British Labour Party based around the Militant newspaper that was first published in 1964...
and reversing party policy on EEC membership and withdrawal from NATO, bringing in Peter Mandelson
Peter Mandelson
Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, served in a number of Cabinet positions under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was a European Commissioner...
as Director of Communications to modernise the party's image, and embarking on a policy review which reported back in 1985.
At the 1987 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1987
The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The election was the third consecutive election victory for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since the 2nd...
, the party was again defeated in a landslide, but had at least re-established itself as the clear challengers to the Conservatives and gained 20 seats reducing the Conservative majority to 102 from 143 in 1983, despite a sharp rise in turnout. Challenged for the leadership by Tony Benn
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...
in 1988, Neil Kinnock easily retained the leadership claiming a mandate for his reforms of the party. Re-organisation resulted in the dissolution of the Labour Party Young Socialists
Labour Party Young Socialists
The Labour Party Young Socialists was the name of the youth section of the British Labour Party from 1965 until 1993. The LPYS was the most successful of the youth sections of the Labour Party in the post war period, at one point having nearly 600 branches and attendances at its national...
, which was thought to be harbouring entryist Militant
Militant Tendency
The Militant tendency was an entrist group within the British Labour Party based around the Militant newspaper that was first published in 1964...
groups. It also resulted in a more centralised communication structure, enabling a greater degree of flexibility for the leadership to determine policy, react to events, and direct resources.
During this time the Labour Party emphasised the abandonment of its links to high taxation and old-style nationalisation, which aimed to show that the party was moving away from the left of the political spectrum and towards the centre. It also became actively pro-European, supporting further moves to European integration
European integration
European integration is the process of industrial, political, legal, economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe...
.
John Major and a fourth successive defeat
Margaret Thatcher who had led the Conservative Party to three successive victories resigned as Conservative leader in November 1990 following a leadership challengeConservative Party (UK) leadership election, 1990
The 1990 Conservative Party leadership election in the United Kingdom took place in November 1990 following the decision of former Defence and Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine to stand against the incumbent Conservative leader and Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.Thatcher failed to win...
from Conservative MP and former cabinet minister Michael Heseltine
Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...
, eventually leaving Labour facing a new Conservative Prime Minister in John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
.
By the time of the 1992 general election campaign
United Kingdom general election, 1992
The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...
, the party had reformed to such an extent that it was perceived as a credible government-in-waiting. Most opinion polls showed the party to have a slight lead over the Conservatives, although rarely sufficient for a majority. However, the party ended up 8% behind the Conservatives in the popular vote in one of the biggest surprises in British electoral history. Although Labour's support was comparable to the February and October 1974 and May 1979 General Elections, the overall turnout was much larger.
In the party's post mortem on why it had lost, it was considered that the "Shadow Budget" announced by John Smith
John Smith (UK politician)
John Smith was a British Labour Party politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994...
had opened the way for Conservatives to attack the party for wanting to raise taxes. In addition, a triumphalist party rally held in Sheffield
Sheffield Rally
The Sheffield Rally was a political meeting held by the Labour Party on Wednesday 1 April 1992, a week ahead of the 1992 UK general election.The event was held at the Sheffield Arena, an indoor sports venue in Sheffield, England. It was attended by 10,000 Labour Party members, including the entire...
eight days before the election, was generally considered to have backfired. The party had also suffered from a powerfully co-ordinated campaign from the right-wing press, particularly Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
's The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
. Kinnock resigned after the defeat, blaming the Conservative-supporting newspapers for Labour's failure and John Smith
John Smith (UK politician)
John Smith was a British Labour Party politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994...
, despite his involvement with the Shadow Budget, was elected to succeed him.
John Smith
Smith's leadership once again saw the re-emergence of tension between those on the party's left and those identified as "modernisers", both of whom advocated radical revisions of the party's stance albeit in different ways. At the 1993 conference, Smith successfully changed the party rules and lessened the influence of the trade unions on the selection of candidates to stand for Parliament by introducing a one member, one voteOne member, one vote
One member, one vote , as used in the parliamentary politics of the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Canadian provinces, is a proposal to select party leaders and/or determine party policy, by a direct vote of the members of each party...
system called OMOV — but only barely, after a barnstorming speech by John Prescott
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Born in Prestatyn, Wales, he represented Hull East as the Labour Member of Parliament from 1970 to 2010...
which required Smith to compromise on other individual negotiations.
However, they benefitted from an increasingly unpopular and divided Conservative government which ran into trouble, when on 'Black Wednesday
Black Wednesday
In politics and economics, Black Wednesday refers to the events of 16 September 1992 when the British Conservative government was forced to withdraw the pound sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism after they were unable to keep it above its agreed lower limit...
' it was forced to leave the European Exchange Rate Mechanism
European Exchange Rate Mechanism
The European Exchange Rate Mechanism, ERM, was a system introduced by the European Community in March 1979, as part of the European Monetary System , to reduce exchange rate variability and achieve monetary stability in Europe, in preparation for Economic and Monetary Union and the introduction of...
. After this, Labour moved ahead in the opinion polls as the Conservatives became increasingly unpopular.
John Smith died suddenly in May 1994 from a heart attack, prompting a leadership election for his successor, likely to be the next Prime Minister. With 57% of the vote, Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
won a resounding victory in a three-way contest with John Prescott and Margaret Beckett
Margaret Beckett
Margaret Mary Beckett is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Derby South since 1983, rising to become the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under John Smith, from 18 July 1992 to 12 May 1994, and briefly serving as Leader of the Party following Smith's death...
. Prescott became deputy leader, coming second in the poll whose results were announced on 21 July 1994.
Origins
"New Labour" is 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 manifestoManifesto
A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...
published by the party in 1996, called New Labour, New Life For Britain
New Labour, New Life For Britain
New Labour, New Life For Britain was a hugely significant political manifesto published in 1996 by the UK's Labour Party, which had recently restyled itself as New Labour under Tony Blair...
and presented by Labour as being the brand of the new reformed party that had in 1995 altered Clause IV
Clause IV
Clause IV historically refers to part of the 1918 text of the British Labour Party constitution which set out the aims and values of the party. Before its revision in 1995, its application was the subject of considerable dispute.-Text:...
and reduced the Trade Union vote in the electoral college used to elect the leader and deputy leader to have equal weighting with individual other parts of the electoral college.
Peter Mandelson
Peter Mandelson
Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, served in a number of Cabinet positions under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was a European Commissioner...
was a senior figure in this process, and exercised a great deal of authority in the party following the death of John Smith
John Smith (UK politician)
John Smith was a British Labour Party politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party from July 1992 until his sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994...
and the subsequent election of Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
as party leader.
The name is primarily used by the party itself in its literature but is also sometimes used by political commentators and the wider media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
; it was also the basis of a Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
poster campaign of 1997, headlined "New Labour, New Danger". The rise of the name coincided with a rightwards shift of the British political spectrum; for Labour, this was a continuation of the trend that had begun under the leadership of Neil Kinnock
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock is a Welsh politician belonging to the Labour Party. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995 and as Labour Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition from 1983 until 1992 - his leadership of the party during nearly nine years making him...
. "Old Labour" is sometimes used by commentators to describe the older, more left-wing members of the party, or those with strong Trade Union connections.
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
, Peter Mandelson
Peter Mandelson
Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, served in a number of Cabinet positions under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was a European Commissioner...
, Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens is a British sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern contributors in the field of sociology, the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29...
and Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell
Alastair John Campbell is a British journalist, broadcaster, political aide and author, best known for his work as Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair between 1997 and 2003, having first started working for Blair in 1994...
are most commonly cited as the creators and architects of "New Labour". They were among the most prominent advocates of the shift in European social democracy
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
during the 1990s, known as the "Third Way
Third way (centrism)
The Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. Third Way approaches are commonly viewed from within the first- and second-way perspectives as...
". Although this policy was advantageous to the Labour Party in the eyes of the British electorate, it alienated many grass roots members by distancing itself from the ideals of socialism in favour of free market policy decisions.
The "modernisation" of Labour party policy and the unpopularity of John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
's Conservative government, along with a well co-ordinated use of PR, greatly increased Labour's appeal to "middle England
Middle England
The phrase "Middle England" is a socio-political and geographical term which originally indicated the central region of England, now almost always referred to as the "Midlands"....
". The party was concerned not to put off potential voters who had previously supported the Conservatives, and pledged to keep to the spending plans of the previous government, and not to increase the basic rate of income tax. The party won the 1997 election
United Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
with a landslide majority of 179. Following a second and third election victory in the 2001 election
United Kingdom general election, 2001
The United Kingdom general election, 2001 was held on Thursday 7 June 2001 to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media, as the Labour Party was re-elected with another landslide result and only suffered a net loss of 6 seats...
and the 2005 election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
, the name has diminished in significance. "New Labour" as a name has no official status but remains in common use to distinguish modernisers from those holding to more traditional positions who normally are referred to as "Old Labour".
Many of the traditional grassroots working-class members of the Labour Party who have become upset and disillusioned with "New" Labour, have left the Party and gone on to join political parties such as the Socialist Party (England and Wales)
Socialist Party (England and Wales)
The Socialist Party is a Trotskyist party active in England and Wales.It publishes the weekly newspaper The Socialist and the monthly magazine Socialism Today...
, the Socialist Labour Party
Socialist Labour Party (UK)
The Socialist Labour Party is a far left socialist political party in the United Kingdom. The party is led by former trade union leader Arthur Scargill, who established it in 1996 as a breakaway from the Labour Party...
and even the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
- all parties claiming to never neglect the "ordinary British people". David Osler, the journalist and author of "Labour Party plc" seems to hint in his book that Labour's supposed steady shift from Socialism and its neglect of support for the working-class people of Britain began to show during the Party's years under Harold Wilson. In the book, Osler claims that the Party is now only a socialist party and indeed a "Labour" party in name only and is a full-capitalist embracing Party which differs little from the Tory Party. Other historians have also argued that Old Labour’s record in putting its social democratic ideals into practice was less successful than comparable northern European sister parties.
In government
United Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
with a landslide majority of 179.
Among the early acts of Tony Blair's government were the establishment of the National minimum wage. And devolution of power to Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
and re-created a city wide government body for London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; the Greater London Authority
Greater London Authority
The Greater London Authority is the top-tier administrative body for Greater London, England. It consists of a directly elected executive Mayor of London, currently Boris Johnson, and an elected 25-member London Assembly with scrutiny powers...
.
Labour went on to win the 2001 election
United Kingdom general election, 2001
The United Kingdom general election, 2001 was held on Thursday 7 June 2001 to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media, as the Labour Party was re-elected with another landslide result and only suffered a net loss of 6 seats...
with a similar majority to 1997. Tony Blair controversially allied himself with President George W Bush in supporting the Iraq War, which lost his government much support. At the 2005 election
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
, Labour was returned to power with a much reduced majority.
In 2007 Tony Blair stood down as prime minister and was replaced by Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
.
See also
- History of socialism in Great BritainHistory of socialism in Great BritainThe History of socialism in the United Kingdom is generally thought to stretch back to the 19th century. Starting to arise in the aftermath of the English Civil War notions of socialism in Great Britain and Northern Ireland have taken many different forms from the utopian philanthropism of Robert...
- History of the British Conservative Party
- Liberal Democrat History GroupLiberal Democrat History GroupThe Liberal Democrat History Group is an organisation interested in the history of United Kingdom political party the Liberal Democrats, and its predecessor parties, the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party...