page_title: History of the Labour Party (UK)
section_title: Jeremy Corbyn
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Labour Party (UK) / In opposition / Jeremy Corbyn
caption_attribution_description: English: Official portrait of Jeremy Corbyn in 2017
context_page_description: The British Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement of the late 19th century and surpassed the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives in the early 1920s. In the 1930s and 1940s, it stressed national planning, using nationalization of industry as a tool, in line with Clause IV of the original constitution of the Labour Party which called for the "common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service".
  Labour has had several spells in government, first as minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929–1931. MacDonald and half his cabinet split with the mainstream of the party and were denounced as traitors. Labour was a junior partner in the wartime coalition from 1940–1945. After the famous 1945 general election landslide under Clement Attlee it set up the welfare state with the National Health Service, nationalised a fifth of the economy, joined NATO and opposed the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Under Harold Wilson in 1964–1970 it promoted economic modernisation.
context_section_description: The day after the 7 May 2015 election, Miliband resigned as party leader. Harriet Harman again took charge as interim leader. Following a leadership election, Jeremy Corbyn was announced as the new party leader on 12 September 2015. Corbyn, then a member of the Socialist Campaign Group and a fixture of the party's left, was considered little more than a fringe hopeful when the contest began, but benefited from a large influx of new members as well as the registration of significant numbers of the new affiliated and registered classes of voting supporters introduced under Miliband. Corbyn received the backing of only 16 of the party's MPs. Membership numbers continued to climb after the start of Corbyn's leadership.
  Tensions soon developed in the parliamentary party over Corbyn's leadership. Following the referendum on EU membership more than two dozen members of the Shadow Cabinet resigned in late June 2016, and a no-confidence vote was supported by 172 MPs against 40 supporting Corbyn. On 11 July 2016 an official leadership election was called as Angela Eagle launched a challenge against Corbyn. She was soon joined by rival challenger Owen Smith, prompting Eagle to withdraw on 19 July 2016 in order to ensure there was only one challenger on the ballot. On 24 September 2016 Corbyn retained leadership of the party with an increased share of the vote. By the end of the contest Labour's membership had grown to more than 500,000, making it the largest political party in terms of membership in Western Europe.
  Following the party's decision to support the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill 2017, at least three shadow cabinet ministers, all representing constituencies which voted to remain in the EU, resigned from their position as a result of the party's decision to invoke Article 50 under the bill. 47 of 229 Labour MPs voted against the bill (in defiance of the party's three-line whip). Unusually, the rebel frontbenchers did not face immediate dismissal. According to the New Statesman, approximately 7,000 members of the Labour Party also resigned in protest over the party's stance; this number has been confirmed by senior Labour sources.
  On 18 April 2017, the Prime Minister Theresa May announced she would seek an unexpected snap election on 8 June 2017. Corbyn said he welcomed May's proposal and said his party would support the government's move in the parliamentary vote announced for 19 April. The necessary super-majority of two-thirds was achieved when 522 of the 650 Members of Parliament voted in support. Some of the opinion polls had shown a 20-point Conservative lead over Labour before the election was called, but this lead had narrowed by the day of the 2017 general election, which resulted in a hung parliament. Despite remaining in opposition for its third election in a row, Labour at 40.0% won its greatest share of the vote since 2001, made a net gain of 30 seats to reach 262 total MPs, and achieved the biggest percentage-point increase in its vote share in a single general election since 1945. Immediately following the election party membership rose by 35,000.
  Following the large increase in party membership with Corbyn becoming leader, membership fees became the largest component of party income, overtaking trade unions donations which had previously been of most financial importance. This increase made Labour the most financially well-off British political party in 2017. This large membership also in 2018 ensured that the NEC was firmly under pro-Corbyn control, when all nine constituency members were elected from the pro-Corbyn slate; previously such control had not been entirely secure.
  Within 10 days of 2019 general election's campaign beginning, Labour reached over £1 million in small donations and a small rise in membership. In the first two days of the campaign, the party raised almost as much as it did in the first fortnight of the 2017 election campaign. On 12 November, the Party's website was hit by a cyber-attack, believed initially by security officials to be from a "non-state actor".
  On 18
caption: Jeremy Corbyn, current leader of the party
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