The Labour Party was founded at the beginning of the twentieth century, and since the 1920s, it has been the United Kingdom's principal political party on the "left".
In the early 1920's, the Labour Party passed the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party, who are the UK's main political party on the "right".
Ideology of the Labour Party
The Labour Party appeared from the trade union movement and from the socialist political parties of the 19th century. It describes itself as a party of democratic socialism.
It was the first political party in the United Kingdom to fight for more rights and representation for the working class, and traditionally, it has been the working class that has provided the base and traditional members for the Labour Party.
Since the 1980's, whilst the party was under the control of Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair, the Labour Party has moved away from its original socialist stance and adopted a number of free market policies. These changes have led observers to describe the party as a social democratic or even neo-liberal party.
History of The Labour Party
In the late 19th century, with a number of members of the trade union movement deciding to move into the political party, a number of small socialist groups formed with intent to link themselves to political policies. One of these groups was the Independent Labour Party.
In the 1895 British general election, the Independent Labour Party fielded 28 candidates but received only 44,325 votes. Their leader at the time, Keir Hardie, believed, that to be more successful in future elections, then they would have to join with other left-wing groups.
In 1899, it was decided that a single Labour Party would be in parliament who would agree upon their own policy. The new party would be called Labour Representation Committee (LRC)
In the 1900 General Election, only two Labour candidates were elected to parliament, one being Keir Hardie, because it was too soon after the creation of their new format.
The 1906 election was much more successful with the LRC winning 29 seats in parliament. After this election, the party decided to change their name to "The Labour Party".
The First Labour Government
In January 1924, Ramsay MacDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister after The Labour Party won the 1923 general election.
Although The Labour Party received the most votes during the election, the party lost their majorit in parliament which meant the government had to rely on the Liberals who held the majority. This meant it was very difficult to get any socialist legislation passed by parliament.
In 1929, Labour won the general election, this time a majority in the House of Commons. During this term, with MacDonald still in power, the Great Depression hit Britain and unemployment leapt to 2.5 million.
The party struggled with the crisis and in 1931, MacDonald submitted the resignation of his ministers and a general election was called.
The Labour Party underwent a very weak period, winning a very low number of seats in parliament.
In the 1935 election, the party under the leadership of Clement Attlee gained 38% of the popular vote and 154 seats in parliament. Neville Chamberlain's Conservative Party was in power at the time and Attlee persuaded the party to abandon its pacifist stance, and favoured rearmament.
Attlee's Labour won the 1945 general election with 50% of the vote and a majority 145 seats in parliament.
It proved to be one of the radical governments which oversaw the nationalization of a number of industries started the develop the UK into a welfare state.
New Labour
The term "New Labour" was one coined during the 1994 general election. A number of prominent figures in today political world including Tony Blair, Peter Mandleson, Alastair Cambell and Gordon Brown are credited as the creators and architects of New Labour.
The modernisation of the Labour Party, and the unpopularity of John Major's Conservative government meant that the Labour Party won the 1997 election with Tony Blair as leader with a landslide vote in their favour.
In 2007, Tony Blair stepped down and was replaced by Gordon Brown.
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