UK Labor Party: founding date, ideology, interesting facts

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

The Labor Party of Great Britain (LPW) is one of the two political forces that are really fighting for power in Foggy Albion. Unlike the rival Conservative party, Labor was initially more focused on raising social standards for the country's citizens. To fully understand the political processes in the UK, it is very important to find out the role of this organization in society. Let's trace the history of the emergence and development of this political force, as well as find out the ideology professed by the Labor Party.

Rise

The Labor Party was founded in 1900. True, its original name sounded like the Workers' Representation Committee. She immediately positioned herself as a representative of the interests of the working class, uniting the trade union movement, and sought to intervene in the struggle of the then dominant parties in the UK - the Conservative and Liberal. One of the leaders of the organization from the very first days of its foundation was Ramsay MacDonald. He also had her office in his apartment. Other notable leaders were James Keir Hardy, ArthurHenderson and George Barnes.

In 1906, the organization acquired its current name, which is written in English as the Labor Party, and translated into Russian as the "Party of Labor".

Early Development

In the first election in 1900, in which a very recently formed party participated, two out of fifteen candidates for the British Parliament got through, and this with campaign funding of only 33 pounds.

Already in the next elections in 1906, the number of Labor representatives in Parliament increased to 27 people. James Hardy became the leader of the parliamentary faction. This also meant informal leadership in the party, since until 1922 there was no separate post of head of the Laborites.

As mentioned above, initially Labor in the UK was in the shadow of the Conservative and Liberal parties, from which they tried to get out. However, at first, due to the small number of seats in parliament, they were forced to cooperate with liberals who were closer to them in ideology. This close collaboration lasted until 1916. Naturally, in this tandem, the liberal party was assigned the role of an older brother.

At the height of the First World War in 1918, the Labor Party adopted its own charter and program, which later became the starting point for shaping the organization's position on major political and social issues.

Ruling party

During the First World War, a split occurred in the ranks of the Liberal Party, andthe labor movement began to gain ever greater momentum due to the growing revolutionary situation in Europe. And the British Laborites entered the big game as a separate political force.

In 1924 they were able to form a government for the first time in history. Labor did not win a majority in parliament, although it received a record number of representatives for the party - 191 people. But the squabbling between conservatives and liberals allowed them to form a cabinet of ministers. Thus, the hegemony of the conservative and liberal parties, which had lasted for centuries, was broken. Since that time, Labor and the Conservatives have become the main competitors in the struggle for power.

Labour Representative James Ramsay MacDonald became British Prime Minister.

However, by the end of the year the Labor government, because of the pressure and intrigues of the Conservatives and Liberals united to fight him, was forced to resign. In addition, thanks to the flow of compromising evidence of competitors in the new parliamentary elections, the workers' party was defeated, and the number of its representatives decreased to 151 people.

But this was only the first of a succession of subsequent Labor cabinets.

McDonald Government

Already in the elections in 1929, the Labor Party for the first time in history won the majority of seats in Parliament (287 delegates) and acquired the right to re-form the cabinet of ministers. James MacDonald became Prime Minister of Great Britain again. But due to a number of political and economicfailures of the new government in the Labor Party itself there was a split. James MacDonald went to rapprochement with the Conservatives in order to have more powerful support in Parliament. This led to him leaving the party in 1931, creating the National Labor Organization to counter it, but continued to hold the premiership until 1935, when he was replaced in this position by a representative of the Conservatives.

The new leader of the Laborites was one of the people who once stood at the origins of this movement - Arthur Henderson. But the split of the party, as well as political scandals, led to the fact that it failed miserably in the new parliamentary elections in 1931, having only 52 representatives in the British legislature.

Attley era

The very next year, George Lansbury replaced Henderson as head of the party, and three years later, Clement Attlee. This leader of the Labor Party has held office longer than anyone before or since - 20 years. The Attlee period lasted from 1935 to 1955.

In the 1935 elections, the party under his leadership was able to significantly improve its performance, having passed 154 representatives to parliament. After the resignation from the premiership of the conservative Chamberlain in 1940, Attlee managed to enter the coalition government of Winston Churchill.

Post-war development of DPs

Due to the outbreak of World War II, the next elections were held only 10 years later in 1945. After them, the Laborites received a record for themselves at that time 393seats in parliament. This result was more than enough to form a cabinet of ministers headed by Clement Attlee, who replaced the Conservative Winston Churchill, who lost the election, as prime minister. Laborites could only be congratulated on such a success, because their victory at that time looked like a real sensation.

It must be said that the third coming to power of the Laborites has become much more effective than the previous two. Unlike MacDonald, Attlee managed to pass a number of significant laws of a social nature, nationalize some large enterprises, and restore the country's economy, battered by the war. These achievements contributed to the fact that in the elections of 1950 the Laborites again celebrated victory, although this time in parliament they were represented much more modestly - 315 people.

However, the Attlee cabinet had far more than just victories. Unsuccessful financial policy and the devaluation of the pound led to the fact that the early elections in 1951 were won by the Conservatives, led by Winston Churchill. Labor won 295 seats in Parliament, although this was enough to continue to have a significant influence on the country's politics, since the Conservatives had only seven more seats.

New elections in 1955 brought more disappointment to Labour, as they won only 277 seats in Parliament and the Conservatives won a very convincing victory. This event was one of the reasons that in the same year Clement Attlee left big politics, and as leader of the Labor Partyhe was replaced by Hugh Gaitskell.

Further history of the party

However, Gaitskell could not become a worthy replacement for Attlee. Labor was increasingly losing its popularity, as evidenced by the decline in their membership in Parliament after the 1959 elections to 258.

In 1963, after Gaitskell's death, Harold Wilson became Labor leader. He led the party for more than thirteen years. The very next year, under his leadership, Labor, after a fourteen-year break, won the parliamentary elections, winning 317 seats, 13 more than the Conservatives. Wilson thus became the first British Labor Prime Minister since Clement Attlee.

However, the leadership of the Laborites in parliament was so shaky that it did not give them the opportunity to implement the main steps of their program. This situation forced a snap election in 1966, in which the Labor Party won a much more convincing victory, receiving 364 seats in Parliament, that is, 111 seats more than the Conservatives.

But by the beginning of the 70s, the UK economy showed statistical figures far from ideal. This led to the fact that in the new elections in 1970 the Conservatives won convincingly, receiving more than 50% of the seats in Parliament, while the Labor Party was content with 288 seats (43.1%). Naturally, the resignation of Harold Wilson was a consequence of such results.

The Conservatives did not justify the hopes placed on them, and in the next elections in the spring of 1974, the Labor Party won, however, with a minimumadvantage. This fact forced them to hold snap elections in the autumn of that year, as a result of which the Labor Party received a stable majority. Wilson again headed the government, but for not entirely clear reasons, already in 1976 he resigned. His successor as leader of the party and in the premiership was James Callaghan.

In opposition

However, the popularity of Callaghan could not be compared with the popularity of Wilson. The crushing defeat of Labor in the elections in 1979 was the natural result of this. The era of the Conservative Party began, which gave the UK such outstanding prime ministers as Margaret Thatcher (she was the head of government for more than 11 years in a row) and John Major. The hegemony of the Conservatives in Parliament lasted 18 years.

During this period, the Laborites were forced to go into opposition. After Callaghan's resignation as party leader in 1980, it was led by Michael Foote (1980-1983), Neil Kinnock (1983-1992) and John Smith (1992-1994).

New Labor

After the death of John Smith in 1994, Margaret Beckett was interim head of the party from May to July, but the young and ambitious politician Tony Blair, who by that time was only 31 years old, won the Labor leader election. His updated program contributed to the opening of the party's "second wind". The period in the history of the party, from Blair's election as its leader to 2010, is commonly referred to as New Labor.

At the center of the New Labor program wasthe so-called third way, which was positioned by the party as an alternative to capitalism and socialism.

Labour's revenge

How successful was the tactics chosen by Tony Blair, showed the parliamentary elections in 1997, in which the Labor Party won for the first time in 18 years. But it was not just a victory, but a real defeat of the Conservatives, led by John Major, because the Labor Party received 253 seats more. The total number of Labor representatives in Parliament was 418, which is still the party's unbroken record. Tony Blair became Prime Minister of Great Britain.

In the elections in 2001 and 2005, the Laborites again win by a significant margin, and get, respectively, 413 and 356 seats in parliament. But, despite the overall good results, the trend indicated a significant decrease in the popularity of DPs among voters. This was largely facilitated by the aggressive foreign policy of the Laborites led by Tony Blair, expressed, in particular, in active military support for the American intervention in Iraq, as well as participation in the bombing of Yugoslavia.

In 2007, Tony Blair resigned and was replaced as party leader and prime minister by Gordon Brown. However, the very first parliamentary elections after Blair's resignation, which took place in 2010, turned into a defeat for the Labor Party and a victory for the Conservatives, led by David Cameron. This result contributed to the fact that Gordon Brown not only vacated the premiership, but also left the post of party leader.

Modernity

Ed Miliband won the 2010 head of the Labor Party. But the party's defeat in the 2015 parliamentary elections, in which it showed an even less convincing result than last time, forced Miliband to resign.

The LPV's current leader is Jeremy Corbyn, who, unlike Blair and Brown, is a left-winger of the party. At one time, he was also known as an opponent of the war in Iraq.

Evolution of ideology

During its history, the ideology of the Labor Party has undergone significant changes. If initially, it was focused on the labor and trade union movement, then over time it absorbed capitalist elements more and more, thereby ideologically drawing closer to its eternal rival, the Conservative Party. However, the achievement of social justice in the state has always been included in the priorities of the party. Nevertheless, Labor eschewed an alliance with the communists and other far-left movements.

In general, Labor's ideology can be described as social democratic.

Prospects

The immediate plans of the Labor Party include victory in the next parliamentary elections to be held in 2020. Of course, this will be extremely difficult to implement, given the current loss of sympathy of the electorate for the party, but there is enough time for the voters to change their minds.