Labour Party (uk)

The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. It has been described as a broad church, containing a diversity of ideological trends from stronglysocialist, to more moderately social democratic.[2] Founded in 1900, the Labour Party overtook the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s and formed minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929–1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after which it formed a majority government under Clement Attlee. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan.

The Labour Party was last in national government between 1997 and 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a landslide majority of 179, reduced to 167 in2001 and 66 in 2005. Having won 258 seats in the 2010 general election, the party currently forms the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Labour has a minority government in the Welsh Assembly, is the main opposition party in theScottish Parliament and has 13 MEPs in the European Parliament, sitting in theSocialists and Democrats group. The Labour Party is a full member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, and continues to hold observer status in the Socialist International. The current leader of the party is Ed Miliband MP

Party ideology

The Labour Party was initially formed as a means for the trade union movement to establish political representation for itself atWestminster. It only gained a 'socialist' commitment with the original party constitution of 1918. That 'socialist' element, the originalClause IV, was seen by its strongest advocates as a straightforward commitment to the "common ownership", or nationalisation, of the "means of production, distribution and exchange". Although about a third of British industry was taken into public ownership after the second world war, and remained so until the 1980s, the right of the party were questioning the validity of expanding on this objective by the late 1950s. Influenced by Anthony Crosland's book, The Future of Socialism (1956), the circle around party leader Hugh Gaitskellfelt that the commitment was no longer necessary. While an attempt to remove Clause IV from the party constitution in 1959 failed,Tony Blair, and the 'modernisers' saw the issue as putting off potential voters, and were successful thirty-five years later, with only limited opposition from senior figures in the party.

Party electoral manifestos have not contained the term socialism since 1992. The new version of Clause IV, although still affirming a commitment to democratic socialism, no longer mention the public ownership of industry: In its place it advocates "the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition" with "high quality public services" not necessarily themselves in the public sector.

Historically, influenced by Keynesian economics, the party favoured government intervention in the economy, and the redistribution of wealth. Taxation was seen as a means to achieve a "major redistribution of wealth and income" in the October 1974 election manifesto. The party also desired increased rights for workers, and a welfare state including publicly funded healthcare.

From the late-1980s onwards, the party has adopted free market policies, leading many observers to describe the Labour Party associal democratic or Third Way, rather than democratic socialist. Other commentators go further and argue that traditional social democratic parties across Europe, including the British Labour Party, have been so deeply transformed in recent years that it is no longer possible to describe them ideologically as 'social democratic', and claim that this ideological shift has put new strains on the party's traditional relationship with the trade unions.