Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Growing out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the nineteenth century, the Labour Party has been described as a "broad church", encompassing a diversity of ideological trends from strongly socialist to moderately social democratic.

Founded in 1900, the Labour Party overtook the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and from 1929 to 1931. Labour later served in the wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after which it formed a majority government under Clement Attlee. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan.

The Labour Party was last in government from 1997 to 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a landslide majority of 179, reduced to 167 in 2001 and 66 in 2005. Having won 232 seats in the 2015 general election, the party is the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

The Labour Party is the largest party in the Welsh Assembly, the third largest party in the Scottish Parliament and has twenty MEPs in the European Parliament, sitting in the Socialists and Democrats Group. The party also organises in Northern Ireland, but does not contest elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Labour Party is a full member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, and holds observer status in the Socialist International. In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Labour Party.

History

Founding
The Labour Party originated in the late 19th century, when it became apparent that there was a need for a new political party to represent the interests and needs of the urban proletariat, a demographic which had increased in number and had recently been given franchise.See, for instance, the 1899 Lyons vs. Wilkins judgement, which limited certain types of picketing 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, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic FederationMartin Crick, The History of the Social-Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party.

In the 1895 general election, the Independent Labour Party 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".p.131 The Foundations of the British Labour Party by Matthew Worley ISBN 9780754667315

Labour Representation Committee

thumb|upright|Keir Hardie, one of the Labour Party's founders and its first leader
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 Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street on 26 and 27 February 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations—trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates.‘The formation of the Labour Party – Lessons for today’ Jim Mortimer, 2000; Jim Mortimer was a General Secretary of the Labour Party in the 1980s

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 coordinate 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 October 1900 "Khaki election" came too soon for the new party to campaign effectively; 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 Conservative's landed interests) intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared to have little concern for the industrial proletariat and its problems.

thumb|left|Labour Party Plaque from Caroone House, 14 Farringdon Street
In the 1906 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.

In their first meeting after the election the group's Members of Parliament decided to adopt the name "The Labour Party" formally (15 February 1906). Keir Hardie, who had taken a leading role in getting the party established, was elected as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (in effect, the Leader), although only by one vote over David Shackleton after several ballots. In the party's early years the Independent Labour Party (ILP) provided much of its activist base as the party did not have individual membership until 1918 but operated as a conglomerate of affiliated bodies. The Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal Government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement.

The People's History Museum in Manchester holds the minutes of the first Labour Party meeting in 1906 and has them on display in the Main Galleries. Also within the museum is the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, which holds the collection of the Labour Party, with material ranging from 1900 to the present day.

Early years
The 1910 election saw 42 Labour MPs elected to the House of Commons, a significant victory since, a year before the election, the House of Lords had passed the Osborne judgment ruling that Trades Unions in the United Kingdom could no longer donate money to fund the election campaigns and wages of Labour MPs. The governing Liberals were unwilling to repeal this judicial decision with primary legislation. The height of Liberal compromise was to introduce a wage for Members of Parliament to remove the need to involve the Trade Unions. By 1913, faced with the opposition of the largest Trades Unions, the Liberal government passed the Trade Disputes Act to allow Trade Unions to fund Labour MPs once more.

During the First World War the Labour Party split between supporters and opponents of the conflict but opposition to the war grew within the party as time went on. Ramsay MacDonald, a notable anti-war campaigner, resigned as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party and Arthur Henderson became the main figure of authority within the party. He was soon accepted into Prime Minister Asquith's war cabinet, becoming the first Labour Party member to serve in government.

Despite mainstream Labour Party's support for the coalition the Independent Labour Party was instrumental in opposing conscription through organisations such as the Non-Conscription Fellowship while a Labour Party affiliate, the British Socialist Party, organised a number of unofficial strikes.

Arthur Henderson resigned from the Cabinet in 1917 amid calls for party unity to be replaced by George Barnes. The growth in Labour's local activist base and organisation was reflected in the elections following the war, the co-operative movement now providing its own resources to the Co-operative Party after the armistice. The Co-operative Party later reached an electoral agreement with the Labour Party.

With the Representation of the People Act 1918, almost all adult men (excepting only peers, criminals and lunatics) and most women over the age of thirty were given the right to vote, almost tripling the British electorate at a stroke, from 7.7 million in 1912 to 21.4 million in 1918. This set the scene for a surge in Labour representation in parliament.Rosemary Rees, Britain, 1890–1939 (2003), p. 200

The Communist Party of Great Britain was refused affiliation to the Labour Party between 1921 and 1923. Meanwhile, the Liberal Party declined rapidly, and the party also suffered a catastrophic split which allowed the Labour Party to gain much of the Liberals' support. With the Liberals thus in disarray, Labour won 142 seats in 1922, making it the second largest political group in the House of Commons and the official opposition to the Conservative government. After the election the now-rehabilitated Ramsay MacDonald was voted the first official leader of the Labour Party.

First Labour government, 1924

thumb|upright|Ramsay MacDonald: First Labour Prime Minister, 1924 and 1929–31
The 1923 general election was fought on the Conservatives' protectionist proposals but, although they got the most votes and remained the largest party, they lost their majority in parliament, necessitating the formation of a government supporting free trade. Thus, with the acquiescence of Asquith's Liberals, Ramsay MacDonald became the first ever Labour Prime Minister in January 1924, forming the first Labour government, despite Labour only having 191 MPs (less than a third of the House of Commons).

Because the government had to rely on the support of the Liberals it was unable to get any socialist legislation passed by the House of Commons. The only significant measure was the Wheatley Housing Act, which began a building programme of 500,000 homes for rental to working-class families. Legislation on education, unemployment and social insurance were also passed.

While there were no major labour strikes during his term, MacDonald acted swiftly to end those that did erupt. When the Labour Party executive criticised the government, he replied that, "public doles, Poplarism [local defiance of the national government], strikes for increased wages, limitation of output, not only are not Socialism, but may mislead the spirit and policy of the Socialist movement."

The government collapsed after only nine months when the Liberals voted for a Select Committee inquiry into the Campbell Case, a vote which MacDonald had declared to be a vote of confidence. The ensuing 1924 general election saw the publication, four days before polling day, of the Zinoviev letter, in which Moscow talked about a Communist revolution in Britain. The letter had little impact on the Labour vote—which held up. It was the collapse of the Liberal party that led to the Conservative landslide. The Conservatives were returned to power although Labour increased its vote from 30.7% to a third of the popular vote, most Conservative gains being at the expense of the Liberals. However many Labourites for years blamed their defeat on foul play (the Zinoviev letter), thereby according to A. J. P. Taylor misunderstanding the political forces at work and delaying needed reforms in the party.

In opposition MacDonald continued his policy of presenting the Labour Party as a moderate force. During the General Strike of 1926 the party opposed the general strike, arguing that the best way to achieve social reforms was through the ballot box. The leaders were also fearful of Communist influence orchestrated from Moscow.

The Party had a distinctive and suspicious foreign policy based on pacifism. Its leaders believed that peace was impossible because of capitalism, secret diplomacy, and the trade in armaments. That is it stressed material factors that ignored the psychological memories of the Great War, and the highly emotional tensions regarding nationalism and the boundaries of the countries.Henry R. Winkler, . "The Emergence of a Labor Foreign Policy in Great Britain, 1918-1929." Journal of Modern History 28.3 (1956): 247-258. in JSTORKenneth E. Miller, Socialism and Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice in Britain to 1931 (1967) ch 4-7.

Second Labour government, 1929–1931

thumb|upright|The original "Liberty" logo, in use until 1983
In the 1929 general election, the Labour Party became the largest in the House of Commons for the first time, with 287 seats and 37.1% of the popular vote. However MacDonald was still reliant on Liberal support to form a minority government. MacDonald went on to appoint Britain's first female cabinet minister, Margaret Bondfield, who was appointed Minister of Labour.

The government, however, soon found itself engulfed in crisis: the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and eventual Great Depression occurred soon after the government came to power, and the crisis hit Britain hard. By the end of 1930 unemployment had doubled to over two and a half million.Davies, A.J. (1996) To Build A New Jerusalem: The British Labour Party from Keir Hardie to Tony Blair, Abacus The government had no effective answers to the crisis. By the summer of 1931 a dispute over whether or not to reduce public spending had split the government.

As the economic situation worsened MacDonald agreed to form a "National Government" with the Conservatives and the Liberals. On 24 August 1931 MacDonald submitted the resignation of his ministers and led a small number of his senior colleagues in forming the National Government together with the other parties. This caused great anger among those within the Labour Party who felt betrayed by MacDonald's actions: he and his supporters were promptly expelled from the Labour Party and formed a separate National Labour Organisation. The remaining Labour Party MPs (led again by Arthur Henderson) and a few Liberals went into opposition. The ensuing 1931 general election resulted in overwhelming victory for the National Government and disaster for the Labour Party which won only 52 seats, 225 fewer than in 1929.

In 1931 Labour campaigned on opposition to public spending cuts, but found it difficult to defend the record of the party's former government and the fact that most of the cuts had been agreed before it fell. Historian Andrew Thorpe argues that Labour lost credibility by 1931 as unemployment soared, especially in coal, textiles, shipbuilding,  and steel. The working class increasingly lost confidence in the ability of Labour to solve the most pressing problem.

The 2.5 million Irish Catholics in England and Scotland were a major factor in the Labour base in many industrial areas. The Catholic Church had previously tolerated the Labour Party, and denied that it represented true socialism. However, the bishops by 1930 had grown increasingly alarmed at Labour's policies toward Communist Russia, toward birth control and especially toward funding Catholic schools. They warned its members. The Catholic shift against Labour and in favour of the National government played a major role in Labour's losses.

1930s split
Arthur Henderson, elected in 1931 to succeed MacDonald, lost his seat in the 1931 general election. The only former Labour cabinet member who had retained his seat, the pacifist George Lansbury, accordingly became party leader.

The party experienced another split in 1932 when the Independent Labour Party, which for some years had been increasingly at odds with the Labour leadership, opted to disaffiliate from the Labour Party and embarked on a long, drawn-out decline.

Lansbury resigned as leader in 1935 after public disagreements over foreign policy. He was promptly replaced as leader by his deputy, Clement Attlee, who would lead the party for two decades. The party experienced a revival in the 1935 general election, winning 154 seats and 38% of the popular vote, the highest that Labour had achieved.

As the threat from Nazi Germany increased, in the late 1930s the Labour Party gradually abandoned its pacifist stance and supported re-armament, largely due to the efforts of Ernest Bevin and Hugh Dalton who by 1937 had also persuaded the party to oppose Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement.

Wartime coalition, 1940–1945
The party returned to government in 1940 as part of the wartime coalition. When Neville Chamberlain resigned in the spring of 1940, incoming Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to bring the other main parties into a coalition similar to that of the First World War. Clement Attlee was appointed Lord Privy Seal and a member of the war cabinet, eventually becoming the United Kingdom's first Deputy Prime Minister.

A number of other senior Labour figures also took up senior positions: the trade union leader Ernest Bevin, as Minister of Labour, directed Britain's wartime economy and allocation of manpower, the veteran Labour statesman Herbert Morrison became Home Secretary, Hugh Dalton was Minister of Economic Warfare and later President of the Board of Trade, while A. V. Alexander resumed the role he had held in the previous Labour Government as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Attlee government, 1945–1951

thumb|upright|Clement Attlee: Labour Prime Minister, 1945–51
thumb|upright|Aneurin Bevan speaking in October 1952
At the end of the war in Europe, in May 1945, Labour resolved not to repeat the Liberals' error of 1918, and promptly withdrew from government, on trade union insistence, to contest the 1945 general election in opposition to Churchill's Conservatives. Surprising many observers, Labour won a formidable victory, winning just under 50% of the vote with a majority of 159 seats.

Although Clement Attlee was no great radical himself, 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 publicly funded National Health Service (NHS) under health minister Aneurin Bevan 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),Clark, Sir George, Illustrated History Of Great Britain, (1987) Octopus Books 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, 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. Attlee remained as leader until his retirement in 1955.

His replacement, Hugh Gaitskell, associated with the right wing of the party, struggled in dealing with internal party divisions (particularly over Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution, which was viewed as Labour's commitment to nationalisation and Gaitskell wanted scrapped) in the late 1950s and early 1960s and Labour lost the 1959 general election. In 1963, Gaitskell's sudden death from a heart attack made way for Harold Wilson to lead the party.

Wilson government, 1964–1970

thumb|upright|Harold Wilson: Labour Prime Minister, 1964–70 and 1974–76
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 1964, 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. Comprehensive education was expanded and the Open University created. However Wilson's government had inherited a large trade deficit that led to a currency crisis and ultimately a doomed attempt to stave off devaluation of the pound. Labour went on to 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 weeks 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.

thumb|left|upright|James Callaghan: Labour Prime Minister, 1976–79
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 trade 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 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 Welsh devolution was rejected outright 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 it triggered a vote of confidence in Callaghan's government that was lost by a single vote on 28 March 1979, necessitating a general election.

Callaghan had been widely expected to call a general election in the autumn of 1978 when most opinion polls showed Labour to have a narrow lead. However he decided to extend his wage restraint policy for another year hoping that the economy would be in a better shape for a 1979 election. But 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".

In the 1979 general election Labour was heavily defeated by the Conservatives now led by Margaret Thatcher. The number of people voting Labour hardly changed between February 1974 and 1979 but 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.

Internal conflict and opposition, 1979–1997
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, William 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 Militant newspaper's five member editorial board were expelled on 22 February 1983.

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 who leader Michael Foot condemned for "siphoning" Labour support and enabling the Conservatives to greatly increase their majority of parliamentary seats.

thumb|upright|left|Neil Kinnock, leader of the party in opposition, 1983–92
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, for which miners' leader Arthur Scargill was blamed, and the Wapping dispute led to clashes with the left of the party, and negative coverage in most of the press. Tabloid vilification of the so-called loony left continued to taint the parliamentary party by association from the activities of "extra-parliamentary" militants in local government.

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 due to block voting support from the National Union of Mineworkers.

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.

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 Tories 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.
thumb|upright|right|Labour Party logo under Kinnock, Smith and Blair's leaderships

The change of leader in the Tory government saw a turnaround in support for the Tories, 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 dramatic change in the change of leader from Thatcher to Major, at least in terms of style if not substance. From the outset, it was clearly a well-received change, as Labour's 14-point lead in the November 1990 "Poll of Polls" was replaced by an 8% Tory lead a month later.

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 21.1992: Tories win again against odds BBC News, 5 April 2005 Despite the increased number of seats and votes, it was still an incredibly disappointing result for supporters of 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 then resigned as leader and was replaced 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.  Meanwhile, the breakaway SDP merged with the Liberal Party. The new Liberal Democrats seemed to pose a major threat to the Labour base. Tony Blair (the Shadow Home Secretary) had an entirely different vision. Blair, the leader of the "modernising" faction (Blairites), 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. Blairites argued that the rapidly growing middle class was largely ignored, as well as more ambitious working-class families. It was said that they aspired to become middle-class, but accepted the Conservative argument that Labour was holding ambitious people back, with its leveling down policies. They increasingly saw Labour in a negative light, regarding  higher taxes and higher interest rates. In order 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.David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, The British general election of 1997 (1997) pp 46–67. 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.

The Black Wednesday economic disaster in September 1992 left the Conservative government's reputation for monetary excellence in tatters, and by the end of that year Labour had a comfortable lead over the Tories 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.

"New Labour" government, 1997–2010

Tony 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". More than a simple re-branding, however, the project would draw upon the Third Way strategy, informed by the thoughts of the British sociologist Anthony Giddens.

"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".

The Labour Party won the 1997 general election with a landslide majority of 179; it was the largest Labour majority ever, and 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 are currently the subject of Sir John Chilcot's Iraq Inquiry.

In the 2005 general election, Labour was re-elected for a third term, but with a reduced majority of 66.

Blair announced in September 2006 that he would quit 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.I will quit within a year – Blair BBC News, 7 September 2007 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 his Chancellor, Gordon Brown. Although the party experienced a brief rise in the polls after this, its popularity soon slumped to its lowest level since the days of Michael Foot. During May 2008, Labour suffered heavy defeats in the London mayoral election, local elections and the loss in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, culminating in the party registering its worst ever opinion poll result since records began in 1943, of 23%, with many citing Brown's leadership as a key factor. Membership of the party also reached a low ebb, 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.John Marshall: Membership of UK political parties; House of Commons, SN/SG/5125; 2009, page 9 

Finance proved a major problem for the Labour Party during this period; a "cash for peerages" scandal under Blair resulted in the drying up of many major sources of donations. Declining party membership, partially due to the reduction of activists' influence upon policy-making under the reforms of Neil Kinnock and Blair, also contributed to financial problems. Between January and March 2008, the Labour Party received just over £3 million in donations and were £17 million in debt; compared to the Conservatives' £6 million in donations and £12 million in debt.

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.UK election results: data for every candidate in every seat The Guardian (London), 7 May 2010 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–present
Harriet Harman became the Leader of the Opposition and acting Leader of the Labour Party following the resignation of Gordon Brown on 11 May 2010, pending a leadership election subsequently won by Ed Miliband. Miliband emphasised "responsible capitalism" and greater state intervention to change the balance of the UK economy away from financial services. Tackling vested interests and opening up closed circles in British society were also themes he returned to a number of times. Miliband also argued for greater regulation on banks and the energy companies.

The Parliamentary Labour Party voted to abolish Shadow Cabinet elections at a meeting on 5 July 2011, ratified by the National Executive Committee and Party Conference. Henceforth the leader of the party chose the Shadow Cabinet members.

The party's performance held up in local elections in 2012 with Labour consolidating its position in the North and Midlands, while also regaining some ground in Southern England. In Wales the party enjoyed good successes, regaining control of most Welsh Councils lost in 2008, including the capital city, Cardiff. In Scotland, Labour's held overall control of Glasgow City Council despite some predictions to the contrary, and also enjoyed a +3.26 swing across Scotland. In London, results were mixed for the party; Ken Livingstone lost the election for Mayor of London, but the party gained its highest ever representation in the Greater London Authority in the concurrent assembly election.

thumb|upright|Jeremy Corbyn, current leader of the party
On 1 March 2014, at a special conference the party reformed internal Labour election procedures, including replacing the electoral college system for selecting new leaders with a "one member, one vote" system following the recommendation of a review by former general-secretary Ray Collins. Mass membership would be encouraged by allowing "registered supporters" to join at a low cost, as well as full membership. Members from the trade unions would also have to explicitly "opt in" rather than "opt out" of paying a political levy to Labour.

The party edged out the Conservatives in the May 2014 European parliamentary elections winning 20 seats versus the Conservatives 19. However the UK Independence Party won 24 seats. Labour also won a majority of seats in the local council elections of 2014, gaining 324 more councillors than they had before the election.

In September 2014, Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls outlined his plans to cut the government's current account deficit, and the party carried these plans into the 2015 general election. Whereas Conservatives campaigned for a surplus on all government spending, including investment, by 2018/19, Labour stated it would balance the budget, excluding investment, by 2020.
 
The 2015 General Election resulted in a net loss of seats throughout Great Britain, with Labour representation falling to 232 seats in the House of Commons. The Party lost 40 of its 41 seats in Scotland in the face of record breaking swings to the Scottish National Party. The scale of the decline in Labour's support was much greater than what had occurred at the 2011 elections for the Scottish parliament. Though Labour gained more than 20 seats in England and Wales, mostly from the Liberal Democrats but also from the Conservative Party, it lost more seats to Conservative challengers, including that of Ed Balls, for net losses overall.

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 hard 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.

Ideology
The Labour Party is considered to be left of centre. It was initially formed as a means for the trade union movement to establish political representation for itself at Westminster. It only gained a "socialist" commitment with the original party constitution of 1918. That "socialist" element, the original Clause 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 Gaitskell felt 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,Martin Daunton "The Labour Party and Clause Four 1918–1995", History Review 1995 (History Today website) and were successful thirty-five years later,Philip Gould The Unfinished Revolution: How New Labour Changed British Politics Forever, London: Hachette digital edition, 2011, p.30 (originally published by Little, Brown, 1998) with only limited opposition from senior figures in the party.John Rentoul "'Defining moment' as Blair wins backing for Clause IV", The Independent, 14 March 1995

Party electoral manifestos have not contained the term socialism since 1992. The new version of Clause IV, though affirming a commitment to democratic socialism, no longer definitely commits the party to public ownership of industry: in its place it 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."

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 claim that this ideological shift has put new strains on the party's traditional relationship with the trade unions.

Historically within the party, differentiation was made between the "soft left" and the "hard left", with the former embracing more moderately social democratic views  while the hard left subscribed to a strongly socialist, even Marxist, ideology. Members on the hard left were often disparaged as the "loony left", particularly in the popular media. The term "hard left" was sometimes used in the 1980s to describe Trotskyist groups such as the Militant tendency, Socialist Organiser and Socialist Action. In more recent times, Members of Parliament in the Socialist Campaign Group and the Labour Representation Committee are seen as constituting a hard left in contrast to a soft left represented by organisations such as Compass and the magazine Tribune.

Symbols
thumb|upright=0.6|The red flag, originally the official flag and symbol of the Labour party
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"."Labour Party Annual Conference Report", 1931, p. 233. 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 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 on February 2006 to mark the centenary of the Labour Party's founding. During New Labour attempts were made to play down the role of the song, however it still remains in use.

Constitution and structure
The Labour Party is a membership organisation consisting of 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) and 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
thumb|upright=1.5|A graph showing Labour Party individual membership, excluding affiliated members and supporters, 1928 to June 2016
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.  the party has approximately 380,000 members.'Revealed: how Jeremy Corbyn has reshaped the Labour party'.'Membership jumped from 201,293 on 6 May last year, the day before the general election, to 388,407 on 10 January'.The Guardian [online], published 13/01/16, sourced 13/01/16. Author – Ewen MacAskill.

For many years Labour held to a policy of not allowing residents of Northern Ireland to apply for membership,, ca. 1999. Retrieved 31 March 2007. "Residents of Northern Ireland are not eligible for membership." instead supporting the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) which informally takes the Labour whip in the House of Commons.Understanding Ulster by Antony Alcock, Ulster Society Publications, 1997. Chapter II: The Unloved, Unwanted Garrison. Via Conflict Archive on the Internet. Retrieved 31 October 2008. 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.

Trade union link

thumb|left|upright=0.8|Unite the Union showing their support for the Labour party on their Leeds offices during the 2015 general election
The Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation is the coordinating 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.RMT 'breached' Labour party rules BBC News, 27 January 2004 Other unions have also faced calls from members to reduce financial support for the PartyLabour's link to unions in danger BBC News, 16 June 2004 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 is a founder member of the Party of European Socialists (PES). The European Parliamentary Labour Party's 20 MEPs are part of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the second largest group in the European Parliament. The Labour Party is represented by Emma Reynolds in the PES Presidency.

The party was a member of the Labour and Socialist International between 1923 and 1940.Kowalski, Werner. Geschichte der sozialistischen arbeiter-internationale: 1923 – 1940 Berlin: Dt. Verl. d. Wissenschaften, 1985 Since 1951 the party has been a member of the Socialist International, which was founded thanks to the efforts of the Clement Attlee leadership. However, 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.Sozialdemokratische Parteien gründen neues Bündnis | Aktuell Welt | DW.DE | 22.05.2013

Electoral performance

+ Parliament of the United Kingdom Election Votes Seats Win Outcome # % # ± 1900 62,698 1.8 %     Conservative majority 1906 321,663 5.7 %    27  Liberal majority Jan-1910 505,657 7.6 %    11  Liberal minority Dec-1910 371,802 7.1 %    2  Liberal minority 1918 2,245,777 21.5 %    15  Coalition majority 1922 4,076,665 29.7 %    85  Conservative majority 1923 4,267,831 30.7 %    49  Labour minority 1924 5,281,626 33.3 %    40  Conservative majority 1929 8,048,968 37.1 %    136  Labour minority 1931 6,339,306 30.8 %    235  National Government majority 1935 7,984,988 38.0 %    102  National Government majority 1945 11,967,746 49.7 %    239  Labour majority 1950 13,266,176 46.1 %    78  Labour majority 1951 13,948,883 48.8 %    20  Conservative majority 1955 12,405,254 46.4 %    18  Conservative majority 1959 12,216,172 43.8 %    19  Conservative majority 1964 12,205,808 44.1 %    59  Labour majority 1966 13,096,629 48.0 %    47  Labour majority 1970 12,208,758 43.1 %    76  Conservative majority Feb-1974 11,645,616 37.2 %    13  Labour minority Oct-1974 11,457,079 39.2 %    18  Labour majority 1979 11,532,218 36.9 %    50  Conservative majority 1983 8,456,934 27.6 %    60  Conservative majority 1987 10,029,807 30.8 %    20  Conservative majority 1992 11,560,484 34.4 %    42  Conservative majority 1997 13,518,167 43.2 %    148  Labour majority 2001 10,724,953 40.7 %    6  Labour majority 2005 9,562,122 35.3 %    57  Labour majority 2010 8,601,441 29.1 %    98  Conservative–Lib Dem majority 2015 9,339,818 30.5 %    26  Conservative majority

 The first election held under the Representation of the People Act 1918 in which all men over 21, and most women over the age of 30 could vote, and therefore a much larger electorate
The first election under universal suffrage in which all women aged over 21 could vote
 Franchise extended to all 18- to 20-year-olds under the Representation of the People Act 1969

Leadership

Leaders of the Labour Party since 1906

Keir Hardie, 1906–08
Arthur Henderson, 1908–10
George Nicoll Barnes, 1910–11
Ramsay MacDonald, 1911–14
Arthur Henderson, 1914–17
William Adamson, 1917–21
John Robert Clynes, 1921–22
Ramsay MacDonald, 1922–31
Arthur Henderson, 1931–32
George Lansbury, 1932–35
Clement Attlee, 1935–55
Hugh Gaitskell, 1955–63
George Brown, 1963 (acting)
Harold Wilson, 1963–76
James Callaghan, 1976–80
Michael Foot, 1980–83
Neil Kinnock, 1983–92
John Smith, 1992–94
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–present

Deputy Leaders of the Labour Party since 1922

John Robert Clynes, 1922–32
William Graham, 1931–32
Clement Attlee, 1932–35
Arthur Greenwood, 1935–45
Herbert Morrison, 1945–55
Jim Griffiths, 1955–59
Aneurin Bevan, 1959–60
George Brown, 1960–70
Roy Jenkins, 1970–72
Edward Short, 1972–76
Michael Foot, 1976–80
Denis Healey, 1980–83
Roy Hattersley, 1983–92
Margaret Beckett, 1992–94
John Prescott, 1994–2007
Harriet Harman, 2007–15
Tom Watson, 2015–present

Leaders in the House of Lords since 1924

Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane, 1924–28
Charles Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor, 1928–31
Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, 1931–35
Harry Snell, 1st Baron Snell, 1935–40
Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount Addison, 1940–52
William Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt, 1952–55
Albert Victor Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough, 1955–64
Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, 1964–68
Edward Shackleton, Baron Shackleton, 1968–74
Malcolm Shepherd, 2nd Baron Shepherd, 1974–76
Fred Peart, Baron Peart, 1976–82
Cledwyn Hughes, Baron Cledwyn of Penrhos, 1982–92
Ivor Richard, Baron Richard, 1992–98
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

Labour Prime Ministers
 Name Portrait Country of birth Periods in office Ramsay MacDonald 65px Scotland 1924; 1929–1931 (First and Second MacDonald Ministry) Clement Attlee 65px England 1945–1950; 1950–1951 (Attlee Ministry) Harold Wilson 65px England 1964–1966; 1966–1970; 1974; 1974–1976 (First and Second Wilson Ministry) James Callaghan 65px England 1976–1979 (Callaghan Ministry) Tony Blair 65px Scotland 1997–2001; 2001–2005; 2005–2007 (Blair Ministry) Gordon Brown 65px Scotland 2007–2010 (Brown Ministry)

Current elected MPs
232 Labour MPs were elected at the 2015 election. The MPs as of June 2015 are:

  Member of Parliament  Constituency  First elected  Notes Diane Abbott  Hackney North and Stoke Newington  1987  Debbie Abrahams  Oldham East and Saddleworth  2011  Heidi Alexander  Lewisham East  2010   Rushanara Ali  Bethnal Green and Bow  2010  First person of Bangladeshi origin to be elected to the House of Commons, and one of the first three Muslim women to be elected as a Member of Parliament. Graham Allen  Nottingham North  1987  David Anderson  Blaydon  2005  Jon Ashworth  Leicester South  2011  Ian Austin  Dudley North  2005  Adrian Bailey  West Bromwich West  2000  Kevin Barron  Rother Valley  1983  Margaret Beckett  Derby South  1974  Member for Lincoln 1974–79, Derby South 1983– Hilary Benn  Leeds Central  1999  Luciana Berger  Liverpool Wavertree  2010  Clive Betts  Sheffield South East  1992  Member for Sheffield Attercliffe 1992–2010, Sheffield South East 2010– Roberta Blackman-Woods  City of Durham  2005  Tom Blenkinsop  Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland  2010  Paul Blomfield  Sheffield Central  2010  Ben Bradshaw  Exeter  1997  Kevin Brennan  Cardiff West  2001  Lyn Brown  West Ham  2005  Nick Brown  Newcastle upon Tyne East  1983  Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East 1983–97, Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend 1997–2010, Newcastle upon Tyne East 2010– Chris Bryant  Rhondda  2001  Karen Buck  Westminster North  1997  Member for Regent's Park and Kensington North 1997–2010, Westminster North 2010– Richard Burden  Birmingham Northfield  1992  Richard Burgon  Leeds East  2015  Andy Burnham  Leigh  2001  Dawn Butler  Brent Central  2015  Liam Byrne  Birmingham Hodge Hill  2004  Ruth Cadbury  Brentford & Isleworth  2015  Alan Campbell  Tynemouth  1997  Ronnie Campbell  Blyth Valley  1987  Sarah Champion  Rotherham  2012  Jenny Chapman  Darlington  2010  Ann Clwyd  Cynon Valley  1984  Vernon Coaker  Gedling  1997  Ann Coffey  Stockport  1987  Julie Cooper  Burnley  2015  Rosie Cooper  West Lancashire  2005  Yvette Cooper  Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford  1997  Member for Pontefract and Castleford 1997–2010, Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford 2010– Jeremy Corbyn  Islington North  1983  Jo Cox  Batley and Spen  2015  Murdered in 2016 during the referendum campaign to leave the European Union. Succeeded by Tracy Brabin after a by-election Neil Coyle  Bermondsey and Old Southwark  2015  David Crausby  Bolton North East  1997  Mary Creagh  Wakefield  2005  Stella Creasy  Walthamstow  2010  Jon Cruddas  Dagenham and Rainham  2001  Member for Dagenham 2001–2010, Dagenham and Rainham 2010– John Cryer  Leyton and Wanstead  1997  Member for Hornchurch 1997–2005, Leyton and Wanstead 2010– Judith Cummins  Bradford South  2015  Alex Cunningham  Stockton North  2010  Jim Cunningham  Coventry South  1992  Member for Coventry South East 1992–97, Coventry South 1997– Nic Dakin  Scunthorpe  2010  Simon Danczuk  Rochdale  2010  Suspended from the Labour Party in December 2015 Wayne David  Caerphilly  2001  Geraint Davies  Swansea West  1997  Member for Croydon Central 1997–2005, Swansea West 2010– Thangam Debbonaire  Bristol West  2015  Gloria De Piero  Ashfield  2010  Stephen Doughty  Cardiff South and Penarth  2012  Jim Dowd  Lewisham West and Penge  1992  Member for Lewisham West 1992–2010, Lewisham West and Penge 2010– Peter Dowd  Bootle  2015  Jack Dromey  Birmingham Erdington  2010  Michael Dugher  Barnsley East  2010  Angela Eagle  Wallasey  1992  Maria Eagle  Garston and Halewood  1997  Member for Liverpool Garston 1997–2010, Garston and Halewood 2010– Clive Efford  Eltham  1997  Julie Elliott  Sunderland Central  2010  Louise Ellman  Liverpool Riverside  1997  Natascha Engel  North East Derbyshire  2005  Bill Esterson  Sefton Central  2010  Chris Evans  Islwyn  2010  Paul Farrelly  Newcastle-under-Lyme  2001  Frank Field  Birkenhead  1979  Jim Fitzpatrick  Poplar and Limehouse  1997  Member for Poplar and Canning Town 1997–2010, Poplar and Limehouse 2010– Robert Flello  Stoke-on-Trent South  2005  Colleen Fletcher  Coventry North East  2015  Caroline Flint  Don Valley  1997  Paul Flynn  Newport West  1987  Yvonne Fovargue  Makerfield  2010  Vicky Foxcroft  Lewisham Deptford  2015  Mike Gapes  Ilford South  1992  Barry Gardiner  Brent North  1997  Pat Glass  North West Durham  2010  Mary Glindon  North Tyneside  2010  Roger Godsiff  Birmingham Hall Green  1992  Member for Birmingham Small Heath 1992–97, Birmingham Sparkbrook and Small Heath 1997–2010, Birmingham Hall Green 2010– Helen Goodman  Bishop Auckland  2005  Kate Green  Stretford and Urmston  2010  Margaret Greenwood  Wirral West  2015  Lilian Greenwood  Nottingham South  2010  Nia Griffith  Llanelli  2005  Andrew Gwynne  Denton and Reddish  2005  Louise Haigh  Sheffield Heeley  2015  Fabian Hamilton  Leeds North East  1997  David Hanson  Delyn  1992  Harriet Harman  Camberwell and Peckham  1982  Member for Peckham 1982–97, Camberwell and Peckham 1997– Harry Harpham  Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough  2015  Died February 2016, triggering a by-election. Carolyn Harris  Swansea East  2015  Helen Hayes  Dulwich and West Norwood  2015   Sue Hayman  Workington  2015   John Healey  Wentworth and Dearne  1997  Member for Wentworth 1997–2010, Wentworth and Dearne 2010– Mark Hendrick  Preston  2000  Stephen Hepburn  Jarrow  1997  Meg Hillier  Hackney South and Shoreditch  2005  Margaret Hodge  Barking  1994  Sharon Hodgson  Washington and Sunderland West  2005  Member for Gateshead East and Washington West 2005–2010, Washington and Sunderland West 2010– Kate Hoey  Vauxhall  1989  Kate Hollern  Blackburn  2015  Kelvin Hopkins  Luton North  1997  George Howarth  Knowsley  1986  Member for Knowsley North 1986–97, Knowsley North and Sefton East 1997–2010, Knowsley 2010– Lindsay Hoyle  Chorley  1997  Tristram Hunt  Stoke-on-Trent Central  2010  Rupa Huq  Ealing Central & Acton  2015  Imran Hussain  Bradford East  2015 Huw Irranca-Davies  Ogmore  2002  Dan Jarvis  Barnsley Central  2011  Alan Johnson  Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle  1997  Diana Johnson  Kingston upon Hull North  2005  Member for Hull North 2005–2010, Kingston upon Hull North 2010– Gerald Jones  Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney  2015  Graham Jones  Hyndburn  2010  Helen Jones  Warrington North  1997  Kevan Jones  North Durham  2001  Susan Elan Jones  Clwyd South  2010  Mike Kane  Wythenshawe and Sale East  2014  Gerald Kaufman  Manchester Gorton  1970  Member for Ardwick 1970–83, Manchester Gorton 1983– Barbara Keeley  Worsley and Eccles South  2005  Member for Worsley 2005–2010, Worsley and Eccles South 2010– Liz Kendall  Leicester West  2010  Sadiq Khan  Tooting  2005  Stephen Kinnock  Aberavon  2015  Peter Kyle  Hove  2015  David Lammy  Tottenham  2000  Ian Lavery  Wansbeck  2010  Christopher Leslie  Nottingham East  1997  Member for Shipley 1997–2005, Nottingham East 2010– Emma Lewell-Buck  South Shields  2013  Clive Lewis  Norwich South  2015  Ivan Lewis  Bury South  1997  Rebecca Long-Bailey  Salford and Eccles  2015   Ian Lucas  Wrexham  2001  Holly Lynch  Halifax  2015  Fiona Mactaggart  Slough  1997  Justin Madders  Ellesmere Port and Neston  2015  Khalid Mahmood  Birmingham Perry Barr  2001  Shabana Mahmood  Birmingham Ladywood  2010  Seema Malhotra  Feltham and Heston  2011  John Mann  Bassetlaw  2001  Rob Marris  Wolverhampton South West  2001  Member 2001–2010, 2015– Gordon Marsden  Blackpool South  1997  Rachael Maskell  York Central  2015   Chris Matheson  City of Chester  2015  Steve McCabe  Birmingham Selly Oak  2010  Member for Birmingham Hall Green 1997–2010, Birmingham Selly Oak 2010– Kerry McCarthy  Bristol East  2005  Siobhain McDonagh  Mitcham and Morden  1997  Andy McDonald  Middlesbrough  2012  John McDonnell  Hayes and Harlington  1997  Pat McFadden  Wolverhampton South East  2005  Conor McGinn  St Helens North  2015  Alison McGovern  Wirral South  2010  Liz McInnes  Heywood and Middleton  2014  Catherine McKinnell  Newcastle upon Tyne North  2010  Jim McMahon  Oldham West and Royton  2015 Alan Meale  Mansfield  1987  Ian Mearns  Gateshead  2010  Ed Miliband  Doncaster North  2005  Madeleine Moon  Bridgend  2005  Jessica Morden  Newport East  2005  Grahame Morris  Easington  2010  Ian Murray  Edinburgh South  2010  Lisa Nandy  Wigan  2010  Melanie Onn  Great Grimsby  2015  Chi Onwurah  Newcastle upon Tyne Central  2010  Kate Osamor  Edmonton  2015  Albert Owen  Ynys Mon  2001  Teresa Pearce  Erith and Thamesmead  2010  Matthew Pennycook  Greewich and Woolwich  2015   Toby Perkins  Chesterfield  2010  Jess Phillips  Birmingham Yardley  2015 Bridget Phillipson  Houghton and Sunderland South  2010  Stephen Pound  Ealing North  1997  Lucy Powell  Manchester Central  2012   Yasmin Qureshi  Bolton South East  2010  Angela Rayner  Ashton-under-Lyne  2015  Jamie Reed  Copeland  2005  Steve Reed  Croydon North  2012   Christina Rees  Neath  2015  Rachel Reeves  Leeds West  2010  Emma Reynolds  Wolverhampton North East  2010  Jonathan Reynolds  Stalybridge and Hyde  2010  Marie Rimmer  St Helens South and Whiston  2015   Geoffrey Robinson  Coventry North West  1976  Steve Rotherham  Liverpool Walton  2010  Joan Ryan  Enfield North  2015  Naz Shah  Bradford West  2015  Suspended from the Labour Party in April 2016 Virendra Sharma  Ealing Southall  2007  Barry Sheerman  Huddersfield  1979  Member for Huddersfield East 1979–83, Huddersfield 1983– Paula Sherriff  Dewsbury  2015  Gavin Shuker  Luton South  2010  Tulip Siddiq  Hampstead and Kilburn  2015   Dennis Skinner  Bolsover  1970  Andy Slaughter  Hammersmith  2005  Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd's Bush 2005–2010, Hammersmith 2010– Ruth Smeeth  Stoke-on-Trent North  2015  Andrew Smith  Oxford East  1987  Angela Smith  Penistone and Stocksbridge  2005  Member for Sheffield Hillsborough 2005–2010, Penistone and Stocksbridge 2010– Cat Smith  Lancaster & Fleetwood  2015  Jeff Smith  Manchester Withington  2015  Nick Smith  Blaenau Gwent  2010  Owen Smith  Pontypridd  2010  Karin Smyth  Bristol South  2015  John Spellar  Warley  1982  Member for Birmingham Northfield 1982–83, Warley West 1992–97, Warley 1997– Sir Keir Starmer  Holborn and St Pancras  2015  Jo Stevens  Cardiff Central  2015  Wes Streeting  Ilford North  2015  Graham Stringer  Blackley and Broughton  1997  Member for Manchester Blackley, Blackley and Broughton 2010– Gisela Stuart  Birmingham Edgbaston  1997  Mark Tami  Alyn and Deeside  2001  Gareth Thomas  Harrow West  1997  Nick Thomas-Symonds  Torfaen  2015  Emily Thornberry  Islington South and Finsbury  2005  Stephen Timms  East Ham  1994  Member for Newham North East 1994–97, East Ham 1997– Jon Trickett  Hemsworth  1996  Anna Turley  Redcar  2015  Karl Turner  Kingston upon Hull East  2010  Derek Twigg  Halton  1997  Stephen Twigg  Liverpool West Derby  1997  Member for Enfield Southgate 1997–2005, Liverpool West Derby 2010– Chuka Umunna  Streatham  2010  Keith Vaz  Leicester East  1987  Valerie Vaz  Walsall South  2010  Tom Watson  West Bromwich East  2001  Catherine West  Hornsey & Wood Green  2015  Alan Whitehead  Southampton Test  1997  Phil Wilson  Sedgefield  2007  David Winnick  Walsall North  1966  Member for Croydon South 1966–70, Walsall North 1979– Rosie Winterton  Doncaster Central  1997  John Woodcock  Barrow and Furness  2010  Iain Wright  Hartlepool  2004  Daniel Zeichner  Cambridge  2015 

See also

Labour Co-operative
Labour In for Britain
Labour Leave
Labour Party in Northern Ireland
Labour Representation Committee election results
List of Labour Parties
List of Labour Party (UK) MPs
List of organisations associated with the British Labour Party
List of UK Labour Party general election manifestos
People's Assembly Against Austerity
Politics of the United Kingdom
Scottish Labour Party
Socialist Labour Party (UK)
Socialist Party (England and Wales)
Welsh Labour

References

Bibliography

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Further reading

 Davies,  A. J.  To Build a New Jerusalem: Labour Movement from the 1890s to the 1990s (1996).
 Driver, Stephen and Luke Martell. New Labour: Politics after Thatcherism (Polity Press, wnd ed. 2006).
 Field, Geoffrey G. Blood, Sweat, and Toil: Remaking the British Working Class, 1939–1945 (2011)  online
 Foote, Geoffrey. The Labour Party's Political Thought: A History (Macmillan, 1997). 
 Francis, Martin. Ideas and Policies under Labour 1945–51 (Manchester UP, 1997).
 Howell, David.British Social Democracy (Croom Helm, 1976)
 Howell, David. MacDonald's Party, (Oxford University Press, 2002).
 Kavanagh, Dennis. The Politics of the Labour Party (Routledge, 2013).
 Matthew, H. C. G., R. I. McKibbin, J. A. Kay. "The Franchise Factor in the Rise of the Labour Party," English Historical review 91#361 (Oct. 1976), pp. 723–752 in JSTOR
 Miliband, Ralph. Parliamentary Socialism (1972).
 Mioni, Michele. "The Attlee government and welfare state reforms in post-war Italian Socialism (1945–51): Between universalism and class policies." Labor History 57#2 (2016): 277-297.   DOI:10.1080/0023656X.2015.1116811
 Morgan, Kenneth O. Labour in Power, 1945–51, OUP, 1984
 Morgan, Kenneth O. Labour People: Leaders and Lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock OUP, 1992, scholarly biographies of 30 key leaders.
 Pelling, Henry, and Alastair J. Reid, A Short History of the Labour Party, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 ed.
 Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left in the 1930s, Cambridge University Press, 1977.
 Plant, Raymond, Matt Beech and Kevin Hickson (2004), The Struggle for Labour's Soul: understanding Labour's political thought since 1945, Routledge
 Clive Ponting, Breach of Promise, 1964–70 (Penguin, 1990).
 Reeves, Rachel, and Martin McIvor. "Clement Attlee and the foundations of the British welfare state." Renewal: a Journal of Labour Politics 22.3/4 (2014): 42+ online.
 Rogers, Chris. "‘Hang on a Minute, I've Got a Great Idea’: From the Third Way to Mutual Advantage in the Political Economy of the British Labour Party." British Journal of Politics and International Relations 15#1 (2013): 53-69.
 Rosen, Greg, ed. Dictionary of Labour Biography. Politicos Publishing, 2001, 665pp; short biographies
 Rosen, Greg. Old Labour to New, Politicos Publishing, 2005
 Shaw, Eric. The Labour Party since 1979: Crisis and Transformation (Routledge, 1994).
 Shaw, Eric. "Understanding Labour Party Management under Tony Blair." Political Studies Review 14.2 (2016): 153-162.

External links

Official party websites
Labour
Scottish Labour
Welsh Labour
London Assembly Labour
Young Labour – Party youth wing
Labour Party in Northern Ireland
Labour Party in Westminster

Social media pages
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube channel

Other
Labour History Group website
Guardian Unlimited Politics—Special Report: Labour Party
Tony Benn Speech Archive, former Labour Party Chairman, 1971–72
Labour History Archive and Study Centre holds archives of the National Labour Party

Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform website

 
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