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

Content: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown arriving at the Labour Party's local election headquarters in London, 2006. AP Images
History
The Labour Party was born at the turn of the 20th century out of the frustration of working-class people at their inability to field parliamentary candidates through the Liberal Party, which at that time was the dominant social-reform party in Britain. In 1900 the Trades Union Congress (the national federation of British trade unions) cooperated with the Independent Labour Party (founded in 1893) to establish a Labour Representation Committee, which took the name Labour Party in 1906. The early Labour Party lacked a nationwide mass membership or organization; up to 1914 it made progress chiefly through an informal agreement with the Liberals not to run candidates against each other wherever possible. After World War I the party made great strides, owing to a number of factors: first, the Liberal Party tore itself apart in a series of factional disputes; second, the 1918 Representation of the People Act extended the electoral franchise to all males aged 21 or older and to women aged 30 or older; and third, in 1918 Labour reconstituted itself as a formally socialist party with a democratic constitution and a national structure. The party’s new program, “ Labour and the New Social Order ,” drafted by Fabian Society leaders Sidney and Beatrice Webb, committed Labour to the pursuit of full employment with a minimum wage and a maximum workweek, democratic control and public ownership of industry, progressive taxation, and the expansion of educational and social services.