Title: Labour Party | History, Facts, Policies, & Leaders | Britannica
Headings: Labour Party
Labour Party
political party, United Kingdom
History

Content: Postwar economic recovery proved slow, however, and in the 1950 election Labour’s majority was reduced to five. In 1951 it lost power to the Conservatives. Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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Throughout the 1950s the question of whether, and how, to adapt the party’s traditional socialist approach to an affluent society—especially the question of the nationalization of industry—divided Labour’s ranks. “ Bevanites” (followers of former health minister Aneurin Bevan) wanted a more socialist economic policy and less dependence on the United States; the “revisionists,” led by Hugh Gaitskell, Attlee’s successor as party leader, wished to drop the commitment to the nationalization of industry. Labour did not regain power until 1964 under Harold Wilson, who was prime minister until 1970. Wilson attempted to resolve the problem of Britain’s relative economic decline by pursuing a strategy of technocratic reform, corporatist relations with business and labour leaders, and a system of “indicative” economic planning, in which the government attempted to facilitate economic development in directions of predicted growth. The party held power again from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then under James Callaghan.