Labour Party

* Orthodox Syndicalism (Federationists)
* Radical Socialism (Autonomists)
* Social Democracy/Centrism (Parlementarians)

The **Labour Party** is a political party and the sole legal party on the federal level in the Union of Britain. It has been described as an alliance of several different left wing ideologies, including syndicalists, social democrats, anarchists, christian socialists, and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. The Labour Party is the founding party of the country, having withstood the British Revolution. It is by far the largest party in the UB, with its closest rivals being the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, soley on the regional levels.

The party was founded in the United Kingdom in 1900, having grown out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the 19th century. It overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming one minority government under Ramsay MacDonald in 1923. The Labour Party publicly supported the anti-monarchist British Revolution when it began in 1924, with several notable Labour members fighting against Royalist forces. After the revolution, the Union of Britain became a one-party state, with Labour at the center. The party was overtaken by its affiliate party, the New Labour Association, during the dictatorship of Oswald Mosley that lasted from 1936 to 1957. Following this, Labour would take back power, and legally bar any other political parties from participating at the federal level.

The leader of the party and Chairperson of the Union of Britain is Rebecca Long-Bailey. Labour is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, and is a founding member of the Fourth International.

As of 2023, Labour has around 410,126 registered members.

## Keir Hardie and the Independent Labour Party (1860 - 1900)

The Labour Party originated in the late 19th century, meeting the demand for a new political party to represent the interests and needs of the urban working class, a demographic which had increased in number, and many of whom only gained suffrage with the passage of the Representation of the People Act 1884. Some members of the trades union movement became interested in moving into the political field, and after further extensions of the voting franchise in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party endorsed some trade-union sponsored candidates. The first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. 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 (ILP), the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party.

At the 1895 general election, the ILP 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. Hardie's roots as a lay preacher contributed to an ethos in the party which led to the comment by 1950s General Secretary Morgan Phillips that "Socialism in Britain owed more to Methodism than Marx".

## Labour Representation Committee (1900 - 1906)

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 left-wing organisations and form them into a single body that would sponsor Parliamentary candidates. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC, and the proposed conference was held at the Congregational Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street, London on 26 and 27 February 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—the trades unions present represented almost half of the membership of the TUC.

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 co-ordinate attempts to support MPs sponsored by trade unions and represent the working-class population. It had no single leader, and 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 1900 general election, also referred to as the "Khaki election", came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively and total expenses for the election only came to £33. 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 being 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 Conservatives' landed interests) intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared to have little concern for the industrial proletariat and its problems.

In the 1906 general election, the LRC won 29 seats  — helped by a secret 1903 pact between Ramsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone that aimed to avoid splitting the opposition vote between Labour and Liberal candidates in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office.