Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in the United Kingdom that sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. It is the governing party of the United Kingdom, having won the 2024 general election, and is currently the largest political party by number of votes cast and number of seats in the House of Commons. There have been seven Labour prime ministers and fourteen Labour ministries. The party traditionally holds the annual Labour Party Conference during party conference season, at which senior Labour figures promote party policy.

The Labour Party was founded in 1900, having grown out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the 19th century, and formed an alliance with the Co-operative Party in 1927. It overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming two minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in the 1920s and early 1930s. Labour served in the wartime coalition of 1940–1945, after which Clement Attlee's government established the National Health Service and expanded the welfare state from 1945 to 1951. Under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, Labour again governed from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1979. In the 1990s, Tony Blair took Labour to the political centre as part of his New Labour project, which governed under Blair and then Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010. In the 2020s, Keir Starmer again took Labour to the centre and has governed since 2024.

Labour is the largest party in the Senedd (Welsh Parliament), being the only party in the current Welsh government. The party won most Scottish seats in the 2024 general election. Labour is a member of the Party of European Socialists and the Progressive Alliance, and holds observer status in the Socialist International. The party includes semi-autonomous London, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish branches; it supports the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in Northern Ireland, while still organising there. , Labour has 366,604 registered members.

Origins to 1890s
The origins of what became the Labour Party emerged in the late 19th century. It represented the interests of the labour unions and more generally the growing urban working class. Hundreds of thousands of workers had recently gained voting rights by laws passed in 1867 and 1884. Many different trade unions flourished in the industrial districts. Their leaders used the Methodist revival tradition to find ways to rally the membership. Several small socialist organizations formed and wanted power based on the working class; the most influential was the Fabian Society, which was made up of middle class reformers. Keir Hardie worked for cooperation among the unions and left-wing groups such as his small Independent Labour Party (ILP).

Labour Representation Committee (1900–1906)
The Labour Party was formed by unions and left-wing groups to create a distinct political voice for the working class in Britain. In 1900 the Trades Union Congress (TUC), an umbrella body for most unions, sponsored a national conference to unite into a single party that would sponsor candidates for the House of Commons. The conference created the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), as a coalition of separate groups with Ramsay MacDonald as secretary. The fearsome issue for labour was the 1901 Taff Vale legal decision which made most strikes illegal; the urgent goal was to get Parliament to reverse it. The LRC cut a secret deal with the Liberal Party: they would not compete against each other in the 1906 general election. Voters gave the Liberals a landslide with 397 seats out of 664; the new LRC won 29 seats. The LRC renamed itself "The Labour Party," with veteran MP Keir Hardie narrowly winning the role of leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

Early years (1906–1923)


The Labour Party's first national conference in Belfast in 1907 helped shape many of its key policies. Never fully resolved was the puzzle of where the final decisions ought to lie—in the annual conference? the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)? The local chapters? The Trade Union Congress (which brought together the heads of most unions)? The conference created a "conscience clause" allowing diversity of opinions rather than a rigid orthodoxy. Irish politics proved to be so different that the Party simply quit Ireland and worked only in England, Scotland and Wales. In 1908–1910 the Party supported the momentous and largely successful Liberal battles in favor of a welfare state and against the Unionist/Conservative Party and against the veto power of the House of Lords. Growth continued, with 42 Labour MPs elected to the House of Commons in the December 1910 general election. During World War I, the party experienced internal divisions over support for the war effort, but also saw one of its top leaders Arthur Henderson, serve in the powerful war cabinet.

After the war, the party focused on building a strong constituency-based support network and adopted a comprehensive statement of policies titled "Labour and the New Social Order". In 1918, Clause IV was added to Labour's constitution, committing the party to work towards common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. Socialism was vaguely promised, but there was no effort made to draw up detailed plans on what that would mean or how it could be accomplished.

The Representation of the People Act 1918 greatly expanded the electorate, enfranchising all men and most women. The party concentrated its appeal on the new electorate with considerable success among working men, but far less success among women. As the Liberal Party collapsed, Labour became became the official opposition to the Conservative government. Its support for the war effort demonstrated that the Labour Party was a patriotic and moderate force that solved problems and did not threaten class warfare.

Labour forms a government (1923–1924)
The 1923 election was a pivotal achievement with the formation of the first Labour government. The Conservatives called for high tariffs. Labour and Liberals both wanted free trade. Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald formed a minority government with Liberal support that lasted 10 months. The only domestic achievement was the Wheatley Housing Act, which expanded the large-scale public housing program that started in 1919 with support from all three major parties. MacDonald was much more successful in foreign policy. He helpedend the impasse over German payment of reparations by enlisting Washington to launch the Dawes Plan. Much more controversial was his decision to recognize the Soviet Union. That ignited an anti-Communist backlash that exploded four days before the 1924 election in the fake Zinoviev Letter in which Kremlin supposedly called for revolutionary uprising by British workers. The 1924 election saw the Conservatives return to power, benefiting from the Zinoviev letter and the continuing collapse of the Liberal vote. The Labour share of the popular vote went up, but it lost seats. Above all the moderation of the Macdonald government put to rest the lingering fears that a Labour victory would produce a violent class war.

The failed general strike (1926–1929)
In 1925-26 coal sales fell and the mining companies demanded an increase in hours and a cut in wages. The miners were totally opposed and planned a strike. The TUC coalition of unions decided it would support the miners by a nationwide general strike that would paralyze most of the national economy. A strike was postponed when the Conservative government offered a subsidy for wages, but it also prepared to deal with the threatened general strike. Meanwhile, the TUC failed to make preparations. It ignored the Labour Party in and out of Parliament and in turn party leaders opposed a national strike. The 1926 general strike failed after 9 days as the government plan devised by Winston Churchill proved highly effective in keeping the economy open while minimizing violence. In the long run, however, the episode tended to strengthen working class support for Labour, and it gained in the 1929 general election, forming a second government with Liberal help.

Second Labour Ministry in 1929 and failures in 1930s
With Liberal help again MacDonald became prime following the successful 1929 election. There were some promising achievements in foreign policy, notably the Young Plan that seemed to resolve the issue of German reparations, and the London Naval Treaty of 1930 that limited submarine construction. Some minor legislation was passed, notably a noncontroversial expansion of new public housing. Overnight in October 1929 the world economy plunged into the Great Depression, and no party had an answer as tax revenue plunged, unemployment doubled to 2.5 million (in late 1930), prices fell, and government spending on unemployment benefits soared. Conditions became much worse in 1931 as the banks became unable to loan the government enough to cover the growing deficit. In an era before Keynesian economics, the strong consensus among experts was for the government to balance its budget. Spending was cut again and again but MacDonald and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden argued that the only way to get an emergency loan from New York banks was to cut unemployment benefits by 10%. They pointed out that cost of food was down 15% and overall prices were down 10%. But in the cabinet most Labour members were vehemently opposed--they demanded new taxes on the rich instead. MacDonald gave up and on 23 August went to King George V and resigned the government. Unexpectedly the monarch insisted that the only patriotic solution was for MacDonald to stay and form an all-party "national government" with the Conservatives, which he did the next day. The Labour Party felt betrayed and expelled MacDonald and Snowden. The new National Government, 1931–1935 kept Macdonald and Snowden and two others, replacing the rest of the Laborites with Conservatives. The 1931 election took place on 27 October. Labour had 6.3 million votes (31 percent), down from 8.0 million and 37 percent in 1929. Nevertheless it was reduced to a helpless minority of only 52 members, chiefly from coal mining districts. The old leadership was gone. One bright note came in 1934 when Herbert Morrison led Labour to take control of the London County Council for the first time ever.

In the 1935 election, Labour recovered to 8.0 million votes (38 percent), and Clement Attlee became Minority Leader. The Party now had 154 seats but had minimal influence in Parliament. At the local level union leaders, led by Ernest Bevin, successfully defeated Communist infiltration. In foreign policy a strong pacifist element made it slow to support the government's rearmament program. As the threat from Nazi Germany escalated, the Party gradually abandoned its pacifist stance and came to support re-armament, largely due to the efforts of Bevin and Hugh Dalton. By 1937 they had persuaded the Party to oppose Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. However as late as April 1939 the Party strongly opposed conscription for the Army.

Wartime coalition (1940–1945)
The party returned to government in May 1940, with about a third of the seats in the wartime coalition under Churchill. Attlee was given a new position as Deputy Prime Minister. He was in charge of the cabinet when Churchill was absent, and handled domestic affairs, working closely with Bevin as Minister of Labour. The war set in motion profound demands for reform. This mood was epitomised in the Beveridge Report of 1942, by the Liberal economist William Beveridge. The Report assumed that the maintenance of full employment would be the aim of post-war governments, and that this would provide the basis for the welfare state. Immediately upon its release, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies. All major parties committed themselves to fulfilling this aim, but the Labour Party was seen by the electorate as the party most likely to follow it through.

Attlee government (1945–1951)
With victory in Europe the coalition broke up in May 1945. The 1945 general election gave Labour a landslide victory, as they won 12 million votes (50% of the total) and 393 seats.

Attlee's government proved one of the most radical British governments of the 20th century, enacting Keynesian economic policies, presiding over a policy of nationalising major industries and utilities including the Bank of England, coal mining, the steel industry, electricity, gas and inland transport (including railways, road haulage and canals). It developed and implemented the "cradle to grave" welfare state conceived by the economist William Beveridge. To this day, most people in the United Kingdom see the 1948 creation of Britain's National Health Service (NHS) under health minister Aneurin Bevan, which gave publicly funded medical treatment for all, as Labour's proudest achievement. Attlee's government also began the process of dismantling the British Empire when it granted independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, followed by Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) the following year. At a secret meeting in January 1947, Attlee and six cabinet ministers, including Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, decided to proceed with the development of Britain's nuclear weapons programme, in opposition to the pacifist and anti-nuclear stances of a large element inside the Labour Party.

Labour went on to win the 1950 general election, but with a much-reduced majority of five seats. Soon afterwards, defence became a divisive issue within the party, especially defence spending (which reached a peak of 14% of GDP in 1951 during the Korean War), straining public finances and forcing savings elsewhere. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Gaitskell, introduced charges for NHS dentures and spectacles, causing Bevan, along with Harold Wilson (then President of the Board of Trade), to resign over the dilution of the principle of free treatment on which the NHS had been established.

In the 1951 general election, Labour narrowly lost to Churchill's Conservatives, despite receiving the larger share of the popular vote – its highest ever vote numerically. Most of the changes introduced by the 1945–51 Labour government were accepted by the Conservatives and became part of the "post-war consensus" that lasted until the late 1970s. Food and clothing rationing, however, still in place since the war, were swiftly relaxed, then abandoned from about 1953.

Post-war consensus (1951–1964)
Following the defeat of 1951, the party spent 13 years in opposition. The party suffered an ideological split, between the party's left-wing followers of Aneurin Bevan (known as Bevanites) and the right-wing of the party following Hugh Gaitskell (known as Gaitskellites) while the postwar economic recovery and the social effects of Attlee's reforms made the public broadly content with the Conservative governments of the time. The ageing Attlee contested his final general election in 1955, which saw Labour lose ground, and he retired shortly after.

Under his replacement, Hugh Gaitskell, Labour appeared more united than before and had been widely expected to win the 1959 general election, but did not. Following this internal party infighting resumed, particularly over the issues of nuclear disarmament, Britain's entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) and Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution, which was viewed as Labour's commitment to nationalisation which Gaitskell wanted scrapped. These issues would continue to divide the party for decades to come. Gaitskell died suddenly in 1963, and this made way for Harold Wilson to lead the party.

Wilson government (1964–1970)
A downturn in the economy and a series of scandals in the early 1960s (the most notorious being the Profumo affair) had engulfed the Conservative government by 1963. The Labour Party returned to government with a 4-seat majority under Wilson in the 1964 general election but increased its majority to 96 in the 1966 general election.

Wilson's government was responsible for a number of sweeping social and educational reforms under the leadership of Home Secretary Roy Jenkins such as the abolishment of the death penalty in 1965, the legalisation of abortion and homosexuality (initially only for men aged 21 or over, and only in England and Wales) in 1967 and the abolition of theatre censorship in 1968. Wilson's government also put heavy emphasis on expanding opportunities through education, and as such, comprehensive education was expanded and the Open University created.

Wilson's first period as Prime Minister coincided with a period of relatively low unemployment and economic prosperity, it was however hindered by significant problems with a large trade deficit which it had inherited from the previous government. The first three years of the government were spent in an ultimately doomed attempt to stave off the continued devaluation of the pound. Labour went on to unexpectedly lose the 1970 general election to the Conservatives under Edward Heath.

Spell in opposition (1970–1974)
After losing the 1970 general election, Labour returned to opposition, but retained Harold Wilson as Leader. Heath's government soon ran into trouble over Northern Ireland and a dispute with miners in 1973 which led to the "three-day week". The 1970s proved a difficult time to be in government for both the Conservatives and Labour due to the 1973 oil crisis, which caused high inflation and a global recession.

The Labour Party was returned to power again under Wilson a few days after the February 1974 general election, forming a minority government with the support of the Ulster Unionists. The Conservatives were unable to form a government alone, as they had fewer seats despite receiving more votes numerically. It was the first general election since 1924 in which both main parties had received less than 40% of the popular vote and the first of six successive general elections in which Labour failed to reach 40% of the popular vote. In a bid to gain a majority, a second election was soon called for October 1974 in which Labour, still with Harold Wilson as leader, won a slim majority of three, gaining just 18 seats taking its total to 319.

Majority to minority (1974–1979)
For much of its time in office the Labour government struggled with serious economic problems and a precarious majority in the Commons, while the party's internal dissent over Britain's membership of the European Economic Community, which Britain had entered under Edward Heath in 1972, led in 1975 to a national referendum on the issue in which two thirds of the public supported continued membership. Harold Wilson's personal popularity remained reasonably high but he unexpectedly resigned as Prime Minister in 1976 citing health reasons, and was replaced by James Callaghan. The Wilson and Callaghan governments of the 1970s tried to control inflation (which reached 23.7% in 1975 ) by a policy of wage restraint. This was fairly successful, reducing inflation to 7.4% by 1978. However it led to increasingly strained relations between the government and the trade unions.

Fear of advances by the nationalist parties, particularly in Scotland, led to the suppression of a report from Scottish Office economist Gavin McCrone that suggested that an independent Scotland would be "chronically in surplus". By 1977 by-election losses and defections to the breakaway Scottish Labour Party left Callaghan heading a minority government, forced to do deals with smaller parties in order to govern. An arrangement negotiated in 1977 with Liberal leader David Steel, known as the Lib–Lab pact, ended after one year. Deals were then forged with various small parties including the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru, prolonging the life of the government.

The nationalist parties, in turn, demanded devolution to their respective constituent countries in return for their supporting the government. When referendums for Scottish and Welsh devolution were held in March 1979 the Welsh devolution referendum saw a large majority vote against, while the Scottish referendum returned a narrow majority in favour without reaching the required threshold of 40% support. When the Labour government duly refused to push ahead with setting up the proposed Scottish Assembly, the SNP withdrew its support for the government: this finally brought the government down as the Conservatives triggered a vote of confidence in Callaghan's government that was lost by a single vote on 28 March 1979, necessitating a general election.

By 1978, the economy had started to show signs of recovery, with inflation falling to single digits, unemployment falling and living standards starting to rise during the year. Labour's opinion poll ratings also improved, with most showing the party to be in the lead. Callaghan had been widely expected to call a general election in the autumn of 1978 to take advantage of the improving situation. In the event, he decided to gamble that extending the wage restraint policy for another year would allow the economy to be in better shape for a 1979 election. However, this proved unpopular with the trade unions, and during the winter of 1978–79 there were widespread strikes among lorry drivers, railway workers, car workers and local government and hospital workers in favour of higher pay-rises that caused significant disruption to everyday life. These events came to be dubbed the "Winter of Discontent".

These industrial disputes sent the Conservatives now led by Margaret Thatcher into the lead in the polls, which led to Labour's defeat in the 1979 general election. The Labour vote held up in the election, with the party receiving nearly the same number of votes than in 1974. However, the Conservative Party achieved big increases in support in the Midlands and South of England, benefiting from both a surge in turnout and votes lost by the ailing Liberals.

Opposition and internal conflict (1979–1994)
After its defeat in the 1979 general election the Labour Party underwent a period of internal rivalry between the left, represented by Tony Benn, and the right, represented by Denis Healey. The election of Michael Foot as leader in 1980, and the leftist policies he espoused, such as unilateral nuclear disarmament, leaving the European Economic Community and NATO, closer governmental influence in the banking system, the creation of a national minimum wage and a ban on fox hunting led in 1981 to four former cabinet ministers from the right of the Labour Party (Shirley Williams, Bill Rodgers, Roy Jenkins and David Owen) forming the Social Democratic Party. Benn was only narrowly defeated by Healey in a bitterly fought deputy leadership election in 1981 after the introduction of an electoral college intended to widen the voting franchise to elect the leader and their deputy. By 1982, the National Executive Committee had concluded that the entryist Militant tendency group were in contravention of the party's constitution.

The Labour Party was defeated heavily in the 1983 general election, winning only 27.6% of the vote, its lowest share since 1918, and receiving only half a million votes more than the SDP-Liberal Alliance, which leader Michael Foot condemned for "siphoning" Labour support and enabling the Conservatives to greatly increase their majority of parliamentary seats. The party manifesto for this election was termed by critics as "the longest suicide note in history".

Foot resigned and was replaced as leader by Neil Kinnock, with Roy Hattersley as his deputy. The new leadership progressively dropped unpopular policies. The miners' strike of 1984–85 over coal mine closures, which divided the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) as well as the Labour Party, and the Wapping dispute led to clashes with the left of the party and negative coverage in most of the press.

The alliances which campaigns such as Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners forged between lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and labour groups, as well as the Labour Party itself, also proved to be an important turning point in the progression of LGBT issues in the UK. At the 1985 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, a resolution committing the party to support LGBT equality rights passed for the first time with block voting support from the NUM.

Labour improved its performance in 1987, gaining 20 seats and so reducing the Conservative majority from 143 to 102. They were now firmly re-established as the second political party in Britain as the Alliance had once again failed to make a breakthrough with seats. A merger of the SDP and Liberals formed the Liberal Democrats. Following the 1987 election, the National Executive Committee resumed disciplinary action against members of Militant, who remained in the party, leading to further expulsions of their activists and the two MPs who supported the group. During the 1980s radically socialist members of the party were often described as the "loony left", particularly in the print media. The print media in the 1980s also began using the pejorative "hard left" to sometimes describe Trotskyist groups such as the Militant tendency, Socialist Organiser and Socialist Action. In 1988, Kinnock was challenged by Tony Benn for the party leadership. Based on the percentages, 183 members of parliament supported Kinnock, while Benn was backed by 37. With a clear majority, Kinnock remained leader of the Labour Party.

In November 1990 following a contested leadership election, Margaret Thatcher resigned as leader of the Conservative Party and was succeeded as leader and Prime Minister by John Major. Most opinion polls had shown Labour comfortably ahead of the Conservatives for more than a year before Thatcher's resignation, with the fall in Tory support blamed largely on her introduction of the unpopular poll tax, combined with the fact that the economy was sliding into recession at the time. The change of leader in the Tory government saw a turnaround in support for the Conservatives, who regularly topped the opinion polls throughout 1991 although Labour regained the lead more than once. The "yo-yo" in the opinion polls continued into 1992, though after November 1990 any Labour lead in the polls was rarely sufficient for a majority. Major resisted Kinnock's calls for a general election throughout 1991. Kinnock campaigned on the theme "It's Time for a Change", urging voters to elect a new government after more than a decade of unbroken Conservative rule. However, the Conservatives themselves had undergone a change of leader from Thatcher to Major and replaced the Community Charge. The 1992 general election was widely tipped to result in a hung parliament or a narrow Labour majority, but in the event, the Conservatives were returned to power, though with a much-reduced majority of 21. Despite the increased number of seats and votes, it was a disappointing result for the Labour party. For the first time in over 30 years there was serious doubt among the public and the media as to whether Labour could ever return to government.Kinnock resigned as leader and was succeeded by John Smith. Once again the battle erupted between the old guard on the party's left and those identified as "modernisers". The old guard argued that trends showed they were regaining strength under Smith's strong leadership. The new Liberal Democrats seemed to pose a major threat to the Labour base. Tony Blair, the Shadow Home Secretary, had a different vision to traditional Labour politics. Blair, the leader of the "modernising" faction, argued that the long-term trends had to be reversed, arguing that the party was too locked into a base that was shrinking, since it was based on the working-class, on trade unions and on residents of subsidised council housing. Blair argued that the rapidly growing middle class was largely ignored, as well as more ambitious working-class families. Blair said that they aspired to become middle-class and accepted the Conservative argument that traditional Labour was holding ambitious people back to some extent with higher tax policies. To present a fresh face and new policies to the electorate, New Labour needed more than fresh leaders; it had to jettison outdated policies, argued the modernisers. The first step was procedural, but essential. Calling on the slogan, "One Member, One Vote" Blair (with some help from Smith) defeated the union element and ended block voting by leaders of labour unions. Blair and the modernisers called for radical adjustment of Party goals by repealing "Clause IV", the historic commitment to nationalisation of industry. This was achieved in 1995.

Black Wednesday in September 1992 damaged the Conservative government's reputation for economic competence, and by the end of that year, Labour had a comfortable lead over the Conservatives in the opinion polls. Although the recession was declared over in April 1993 and a period of strong and sustained economic growth followed, coupled with a relatively swift fall in unemployment, the Labour lead in the opinion polls remained strong. However, Smith died from a heart attack in May 1994. , he is the last Labour leader not to have contested a general election (excluding acting leaders and the incumbent, whose tenure is ongoing).

New Labour (1994–2010)
Blair continued to move the party further to the centre, abandoning the largely symbolic Clause Four at the 1995 mini-conference in a strategy to increase the party's appeal to "middle England". The political philosophy of New Labour was influenced by the party's development of Anthony Giddens' Third Way which attempted to provide a synthesis between capitalism and socialism. New Labour was first termed as an alternative branding for the Labour Party, dating from a conference slogan first used by the Labour Party in 1994, which was later seen in a draft manifesto published by the party in 1996, called New Labour, New Life For Britain. It was a continuation of the trend that had begun under the leadership of Neil Kinnock. New Labour as a name has no official status, but remains in common use to distinguish modernisers from those holding to more traditional positions, normally referred to as "Old Labour".

"New Labour is a party of ideas and ideals but not of outdated ideology. What counts is what works. The objectives are radical. The means will be modern."

The Labour Party won the 1997 general election in a landslide victory with a parliamentary majority of 179; it was the largest ever Labour majority, and at the time the largest swing to a political party achieved since 1945. Over the next decade, a wide range of progressive social reforms were enacted, with millions lifted out of poverty during Labour's time in office largely as a result of various tax and benefit reforms.

Among the early acts of Blair's government were the establishment of the national minimum wage, the devolution of power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, major changes to the regulation of the banking system and the re-creation of a citywide government body for London, the Greater London Authority, with its own elected-Mayor. Combined with a Conservative opposition that had yet to organise effectively under William Hague, and the continuing popularity of Blair, Labour went on to win the 2001 election with a similar majority, dubbed the "quiet landslide" by the media. In 2003 Labour introduced tax credits, government top-ups to the pay of low-wage workers.

A perceived turning point was when Blair controversially allied himself with US President George W. Bush in supporting the Iraq War, which caused him to lose much of his political support. The UN Secretary-General, among many, considered the war illegal and a violation of the UN Charter. The Iraq War was deeply unpopular in most western countries, with Western governments divided in their support and under pressure from worldwide popular protests. The decisions that led up to the Iraq war and its subsequent conduct were the subject of the Iraq Inquiry.

In the 2005 general election, Labour was re-elected for a third term, but with a reduced majority of 66 and popular vote of only 35.2%. Blair announced in September 2006 that he would step down as leader within the year, though he had been under pressure to quit earlier than May 2007 in order to get a new leader in place before the May elections which were expected to be disastrous for Labour. In the event, the party did lose power in Scotland to a minority Scottish National Party government at the 2007 elections and, shortly after this, Blair resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by the Chancellor, Gordon Brown. Brown coordinated the UK's response to the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Membership of the party also reached a low falling to 156,205 by the end of 2009: over 40 per cent of the 405,000 peak reached in 1997 and thought to be the lowest total since the party was founded.

In the 2010 general election on 6 May that year, Labour with 29.0% of the vote won the second largest number of seats (258). The Conservatives with 36.5% of the vote won the largest number of seats (307), but no party had an overall majority, meaning that Labour could still remain in power if they managed to form a coalition with at least one smaller party. However, the Labour Party would have had to form a coalition with more than one other smaller party to gain an overall majority; anything less would result in a minority government. On 10 May 2010, after talks to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats broke down, Brown announced his intention to stand down as Leader before the Labour Party Conference but a day later resigned as both Prime Minister and party leader.

Opposition (2010–2024)
Ed Miliband won the subsequent leadership election. Miliband emphasised "responsible capitalism" and greater state intervention to rebalance the economy away from financial services. He advocated for more regulation of banks and energy companies and often addressed the need to challenge vested interests and increase inclusivity in British society. He adopted the "One Nation Labour" branding in 2012. The Parliamentary Labour Party voted to abolish Shadow Cabinet elections in 2011, ratified by the National Executive Committee and Party Conference. Henceforth the leader of the party chose the Shadow Cabinet members.

In March 2014, the party reformed internal election procedures, including replacing the electoral college system with "one member, one vote". Mass membership was encouraged by creating a class of "registered supporters" as an alternative to full membership. Trade union members would also have to explicitly opt in rather than opt out of paying a political levy to the party.

In September 2014, Labour outlined plans to cut the government's current account deficit and balance the budget by 2020, excluding investment. The party carried these plans into the 2015 general election, which Labour lost. Its representation fell to 232 seats in the House of Commons. The party lost 40 of its 41 seats in Scotland to the Scottish National Party.

After the 2015 general election, Miliband resigned as party leader and Harriet Harman again became interim leader. Labour held a leadership election in which Jeremy Corbyn, then a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, was considered a fringe candidate when the contest began, receiving nominations from just 36 MPs, one more than the minimum required to stand, and the support of just 16 MPs. The Labour Party saw a flood of membership applications during the leadership election, with most of the new members thought to be Corbyn supporters. Corbyn was elected leader with 60% of the vote. Membership continued to climb after his victory; one year later it had grown to more than 500,000, making it the largest political party in Western Europe.

Tensions soon developed in the parliamentary party over Corbyn's leadership, particularly after the 2016 Brexit referendum. Many in the party were angered that Corbyn did not campaign strongly against Brexit; he had been only a "lukewarm" supporter of remaining in the European Union and refused to join David Cameron in campaigning for the Remain side. 21 members of the Shadow Cabinet resigned after the referendum. Corbyn lost a no-confidence vote among Labour MPs by 172–40, triggering a leadership election, which he won decisively with 62% support among Labour party members.

In April 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap election for June 2017. Corbyn resisted pressure from within the Labour Party to call for a referendum on the eventual Brexit deal, instead focusing on healthcare, education and ending austerity. Although Labour started the campaign as far as 20 points behind, it defied expectations by gaining 40% of the vote, its greatest share since 2001 and the biggest increase in vote share in a single general election since 1945. The party gained a net 30 seats with the Conservatives losing their overall majority.

From 2016, the Labour Party faced criticism for failing to deal with antisemitism. Criticism was also levelled at Corbyn. The Chakrabarti Inquiry cleared the party of widespread antisemitism but identified an "occasionally toxic atmosphere". High-profile party members, including Ken Livingstone, Peter Willsman and Chris Williamson, left the party or were suspended over antisemitism-related incidents. In 2018, internal divisions emerged over adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, with 68 rabbis criticising the leadership. The issue was cited by a number of MPs who left the party to set up Change UK. An investigation by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission found the party responsible for three Equality Act breaches, including harassment political interference in antisemitism complaints.

During the 2019 general election, Labour campaigned on a manifesto widely considered the most radical in decades, more closely resembling Labour's politics of the 1970s than subsequent decades. These included plans to nationalise the country's biggest energy firms, the National Grid, the water industry, Royal Mail, the railways and the broadband arm of BT. The election saw Labour win its lowest number of seats since 1935. Following Labour's defeat in the 2019 general election Corbyn announced that he would stand down as leader.

Return to government (2024–present)
On 4 April 2020, Keir Starmer was elected as Leader of the Labour Party amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. During his tenure as opposition leader, Starmer repositioned the party from the left toward the centre-left and political centre, and emphasised the importance of eliminating antisemitism within the party. Starmer led Labour to victory in the local elections in 2023 and 2024. In 2023, Starmer set out five missions for his government, targeting issues such as economic growth, health, clean energy, crime and education.

During the 2024 general election, Labour maintained a strong poll lead, with its manifesto focusing on on economic growth, planning system reform, infrastructure, clean energy, healthcare, education, childcare, constitutional reform, and strengthening workers' rights. Starmer led Labour to a landslide victory with a majority of 174, ending fourteen years of Conservative government with Labour becoming the largest party in the House of Commons. He succeeded Rishi Sunak as prime minister on 5 July 2024, becoming the first Labour prime minister since Gordon Brown in 2010 and the first one to win a general election since Tony Blair in 2005. One of Starmer's first cabinet appointments was Rachel Reeves as Chancellor of the Exchequer, which made her the first woman to hold the office.

Ideology
Labour sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. It was formed to provide political representation for the trade union movement at Westminster. The Labour Party gained a socialist commitment with the party constitution of 1918, Clause IV of which called for 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 by the late 1950s. Influenced by Anthony Crosland's book The Future of Socialism (1956), the circle around party leader Hugh Gaitskell felt that the commitment was no longer necessary. An attempt to remove Clause IV from the party constitution in 1959 failed, Tony Blair and New Labour "modernisers" were successful in doing so 35 years later.

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 adopted free market policies, leading many observers to describe the Labour Party as social democratic or the 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 that this ideological shift has put new strains on the Labour Party's traditional relationship with the trade unions. Within the party, differentiation was made between the social democratic and the socialist wings of the party, the latter often subscribed to a radical socialist, even Marxist, ideology.

While affirming a commitment to democratic socialism, the new version of Clause IV no longer definitely commits the party to public ownership of industry and in its place advocates "the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition" along with "high quality public services [...] either owned by the public or accountable to them". MPs in the Socialist Campaign Group and the Labour Representation Committee see themselves as standard bearers for the radical socialist tradition in contrast to the democratic socialist tradition represented by organisations such as Compass and the magazine Tribune. The group Progress, founded in 1996, represents the centrist position in the party and was opposed to the Corbyn leadership. In 2015, Momentum was created by Jon Lansman as a grass-roots left-wing organisation following Jeremy Corbyn's election as party leader. Rather than organising among the PLP, Momentum is a rank and file grouping with an estimated 40,000 members. The party also has a Christian socialist faction, the Christians on the Left society.

Symbols
Labour has long been identified with red, a political colour traditionally affiliated with socialism and the labour movement. Prior to the red flag logo, the party had used a modified version of the classic 1924 shovel, torch and quill emblem. In 1924 a brand conscious Labour leadership had devised a competition, inviting supporters to design a logo to replace the 'polo mint' like motif that had previously appeared on party literature. The winning entry, emblazoned with the word "Liberty" over a design incorporating a torch, shovel and quill symbol, was popularised through its sale, in badge form, for a shilling. The party conference in 1931 passed a motion "That this conference adopts Party Colours, which should be uniform throughout the country, colours to be red and gold". During the New Labour period, the colour purple was also used, and the party has employed other colours in certain areas according to local tradition.

Since the party's inception, the red flag has been Labour's official symbol; the flag has been associated with socialism and revolution ever since the 1789 French Revolution and the revolutions of 1848. The red rose, a symbol of socialism and social democracy, was adopted as the party symbol in 1986 as part of a rebranding exercise and is now incorporated into the party logo.

The red flag became an inspiration which resulted in the composition of "The Red Flag", the official party anthem since its inception, being sung at the end of party conferences and on various occasions such as in Parliament in February 2006 to mark the centenary of the Labour Party's founding. It still remains in use, although attempts were made to play down the role of the song during New Labour. The song "Jerusalem", based on a William Blake poem, is also traditionally sung at the end of party conferences with The Red Flag.

Constitution and structure
The Labour Party is a membership organisation consisting of individual members and constituency Labour parties, affiliated trade unions, socialist societies and the Co-operative Party, with which it has an electoral agreement. Members who are elected to parliamentary positions take part in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). Prior to Brexit in January 2020, members also took part in the European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP).

The party's decision-making bodies on a national level formally include the National Executive Committee (NEC), Labour Party Conference and National Policy Forum (NPF)—although in practice the Parliamentary leadership has the final say on policy. The 2008 Labour Party Conference was the first at which affiliated trade unions and Constituency Labour Parties did not have the right to submit motions on contemporary issues that would previously have been debated. Labour Party conferences now include more "keynote" addresses, guest speakers and question-and-answer sessions, while specific discussion of policy now takes place in the National Policy Forum.

The Labour Party is an unincorporated association without a separate legal personality, and the Labour Party Rule Book legally regulates the organisation and the relationship with members. The General Secretary represents the party on behalf of the other members of the Labour Party in any legal matters or actions.

Membership and registered supporters
As of 31 December 2010, under Leader Ed Miliband, individual membership of the party was 193,261; a historical low for the Party since the 1930s. Membership remained relatively unchanged in the following years. In August 2015, prior to the 2015 leadership election, the Labour Party reported 292,505 full members, 147,134 affiliated supporters (mostly from affiliated trade unions and socialist societies) and 110,827 registered supporters; a total of about 550,000 members and supporters.

Following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader, individual membership almost doubled to 388,262 in December 2015; and rose significantly again the following year to 543,645 in December 2016. , the party had 564,443 full members, a peak since 1980 making it the largest political party in Western Europe. Consequently, membership fees became the largest component of the party's income, overtaking trade unions donations which were previously of most financial importance, making Labour the most financially well-off British political party in 2017. As of December 2019, the party had 532,046 full members.

In the 2020 leadership election 490,731 people voted, of which 401,564 (81.8%) were members, 76,161 (15.5%) had affiliated membership and 13,006 (2.6%) were registered supporters. The registered supporter class was abolished in 2021. By July 2023, the party's membership was reported to have fallen to 399,195 members. In March 2024, it was reported that the Labour Party's membership had fallen to 366,604.

Northern Ireland
For many years, Labour held to a policy of not allowing residents of Northern Ireland to apply for membership, instead supporting the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) which informally takes the Labour whip in the House of Commons. The 2003 Labour Party Conference accepted legal advice that the party could not continue to prohibit residents of the province joining, and whilst the National Executive has established a regional constituency party it has not yet agreed to contest elections there. In December 2015 a meeting of the members of the Labour Party in Northern Ireland decided unanimously to contest the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly held in May 2016. The Labour Party in Northern Ireland moved a model motion, in July 2020, for Labour's NEC to allow them a "Right to Stand". The motion noted how the SDLP's alliance with Fianna Fáil, a member-party of the Liberal International in the Republic of Ireland, had meant that it was campaigning against the Irish Labour Party, which it saw as questioning "the legitimacy of Labour's sister party relationship".

Trade union link
The Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation is the co-ordinating structure that supports the policy and campaign activities of affiliated union members within the Labour Party at the national, regional and local level.

As it was founded by the unions to represent the interests of working-class people, Labour's link with the unions has always been a defining characteristic of the party. In recent years this link has come under increasing strain, with the RMT being expelled from the party in 2004 for allowing its branches in Scotland to affiliate to the left-wing Scottish Socialist Party. Other unions have also faced calls from members to reduce financial support for the Party and seek more effective political representation for their views on privatisation, public spending cuts and the anti-trade union laws. Unison and GMB have both threatened to withdraw funding from constituency MPs and Dave Prentis of UNISON has warned that the union will write "no more blank cheques" and is dissatisfied with "feeding the hand that bites us". Union funding was redesigned in 2013 after the Falkirk candidate-selection controversy. The Fire Brigades Union, which "severed links" with Labour in 2004, re-joined the party under Corbyn's leadership in 2015.

European and international affiliation
The Labour Party was a founder member of the Party of European Socialists (PES). The European Parliamentary Labour Party's 10 MEPs were part of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the second largest group in the European Parliament. The Labour Party was represented by Emma Reynolds in the PES presidency.

The party was a member of the Labour and Socialist International between 1923 and 1940. Since 1951, the party has been a member of the Socialist International, which was founded thanks to the efforts of the Clement Attlee leadership. In February 2013, the Labour Party NEC decided to downgrade participation to observer membership status, "in view of ethical concerns, and to develop international co-operation through new networks". Labour was a founding member of the Progressive Alliance international founded in co-operation with the Social Democratic Party of Germany and other social-democratic parties on 22 May 2013.

Electoral performance
For all detailed election results involving the Labour Party including: general elections, devolved national elections, London Assembly, London Mayoral, combined authority and European Parliament elections see: Electoral history of the Labour Party (UK).

In all general elections since 1918, Labour has been either the governing party or the Official Opposition.

UK general election results
Following the 1918 general election, Labour became the Official Opposition after the Conservatives went into coalition with the Liberal Party. Labour's first minority governments came following the 1923 and 1929 general elections, the latter being the first time Labour were the largest party in the country by seats won. They formed their first majority government following the 1945 general election. However, after winning the 1950 general election, Labour would lose the following election in 1951 to the Conservatives despite gaining the highest share of votes to date at 48.8%. During the 1983 election, Labour posted their worst vote share in the post-war period at 27.6%. In 1997, a party record of 418 Labour MPs were elected. At the 2024 general election, Labour won a landslide victory and returned to government with Keir Starmer as prime minister.


 * Note:

Leaders of the Labour Party since 1906
Source:


 * Keir Hardie (1906–1908)
 * Arthur Henderson (1908–1910)
 * George Barnes (1910–1911)
 * Ramsay MacDonald (1911–1914)
 * Arthur Henderson (1914–1917)
 * William Adamson (1917–1921)
 * J. R. Clynes (1921–1922)
 * Ramsay MacDonald (1922–1931)
 * Arthur Henderson (1931–1932)
 * George Lansbury (1932–1935)
 * Clement Attlee (1935–1955)
 * Hugh Gaitskell (1955–1963)
 * George Brown (1963; acting)
 * Harold Wilson (1963–1976)
 * James Callaghan (1976–1980)
 * Michael Foot (1980–1983)
 * Neil Kinnock (1983–1992)
 * John Smith (1992–1994)
 * Margaret Beckett (1994; acting)
 * Tony Blair (1994–2007)
 * Gordon Brown (2007–2010)
 * Harriet Harman (2010; acting)
 * Ed Miliband (2010–2015)
 * Harriet Harman (2015; acting)
 * Jeremy Corbyn (2015–2020)
 * Keir Starmer (2020–present)

Deputy Leaders of the Labour Party since 1922

 * J. R. Clynes (1922–1932)
 * William Graham (1931–1932)
 * Clement Attlee (1932–1935)
 * Arthur Greenwood (1935–1945)
 * Herbert Morrison (1945–1956)
 * Jim Griffiths (1956–1959)
 * Aneurin Bevan (1959–1960)
 * George Brown (1960–1970)
 * Roy Jenkins (1970–1972)
 * Edward Short (1972–1976)
 * Michael Foot (1976–1980)
 * Denis Healey (1980–1983)
 * Roy Hattersley (1983–1992)
 * Margaret Beckett (1992–1994)
 * John Prescott (1994–2007)
 * Harriet Harman (2007–2015)
 * Tom Watson (2015–2019)
 * Angela Rayner (2020–present)

Leaders in the House of Lords since 1924

 * Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane (1924–1928)
 * Charles Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor (1928–1931)
 * Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede (1931–1935)
 * Harry Snell, 1st Baron Snell (1935–1940)
 * Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount Addison (1940–1952)
 * William Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt (1952–1955)
 * Albert Victor Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough (1955–1964)
 * Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1964–1968)
 * Edward Shackleton, Baron Shackleton (1968–1974)
 * Malcolm Shepherd, 2nd Baron Shepherd (1974–1976)
 * Fred Peart, Baron Peart (1976–1982)
 * Cledwyn Hughes, Baron Cledwyn of Penrhos (1982–1992)
 * Ivor Richard, Baron Richard (1992–1998)
 * Margaret Jay, Baroness Jay of Paddington (1998–2001)
 * Gareth Williams, Baron Williams of Mostyn (2001–2003)
 * Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos (2003–2007)
 * Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland (2007–2008)
 * Janet Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (2008–2015)
 * Angela Smith, Baroness Smith of Basildon (2015–present)