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Labour Party | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Party Leader | Keir Starmer |
| Founded | 27 February, 1900 |
| Youth wing | Young Labour |
| Political orientation | Social Democracy Social Liberalism Democratic Socialism |
| Website | |
| https://labour.org.uk/ | |
The Labour Party is a bourgeois and social fascist political party[1][2] in the United Kingdom. First established in 1900, it grew out of the labor aristocracy of the 18th century.[3][4][5][6] It supported the imperialist First World War, betrayed both the 1926 general strike[7][8] and the 1984 miners' strike,[9] and has launched major imperialist wars; most principally, the Iraq War, under the leadership of the war criminal Tony Blair. While it can be credited with the nationalization of major industries following the Second World War, including the central bank, coal, steel, railways, gas, and electricity,[10] it should be noted that nationalization is not necessarily the characteristic of a socialist government.
History
Formation
The Labour Representative Committee won 29 seats in the 1906 election and changed its name to the Labour Party. Its early members were trade unionists, most of which were highly religious. It was part of the Second International, but supported the First World War and broke strikes during the war.[11]
Interwar period
The Labour Party was the second largest party in the UK after the 1923 election. The first Labour government was led by Ramsay MacDonald. Labour was reelected in 1929 and promised to reduce unemployment, but unemployment increased by 750,000 in the first year.[11]
2022 Russo-Ukrainian conflict
See main article: 2022 Russo-Ukrainian conflict
Ernest Bevin, Labour foreign secretary from 1945-1951, played a central role in the creation of NATO. David Lammy, Labour's current shadow foreign secretary, continues support for NATO and has called for higher European defence spending.[12] Eleven Labour MPs were threatened with expulsion for signing a statement drawn up by the Stop the War Coalition which refuted the idea that NATO is a defensive alliance and which recognized Russia's security concerns.[13]
References
- ↑ “Of course, most of the Labour Party’s members are working men. However, whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only that determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat. Regarded from this, the only correct point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noses and Scheidemanns.”
Vladimir Lenin. V. I. Lenin: Collected Works-Volume 31: April-December 1920: 'Speech On Affiliation To The British Labour Party'. [LG] [MIA] - ↑ “[On the Labour Representation Committee's rejection of the resolution that its "ultimate object [be] the socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange"] At any rate the 53 to 39 was accepted as a final and decisive vote, and the non-Socialist political Labour Party was duly constituted.”
Henry Mayers Hyndman (1912). Further Reminiscences: 'The Dependent Labour Party'. [MIA] - ↑ “I couldn't remain on the staff of a paper which lends itself to writing up these German Trade Unions, comparable only to those very worst English ones which allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at least paid by the middle class.”
Karl Marx, Frederick Engels (1993). Collected Works, Vol. 46: Marx and Engels: 1880-1883: 'Engels to Marx. 11 August' (p. 121). ISBN 9780717805464 [LG] - ↑ “The old Unions with the textile workers at their head, together with the entire reactionary party that exists among the workers, had mustered all their forces in order to overturn the eight hours resolution of 1890. [...] There is still much confusion, but there's no stopping things now and the bourgeois papers fully recognise the defeat of the bourgeois labour party [the Independent Labour Party].”
Karl Marx, Frederick Engels (2002). Collected Works, Vol. 49: Engels: 1890-1892: 'Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 14 September' (p. 238). International Publishers. ISBN 9780717805495 [LG] - ↑ “Formerly a “bourgeois labour party”, to use Engels’s remarkably profound expression, could arise only in one country, because it alone enjoyed a monopoly, but, on the other hand, it could exist for a long time. Now a “bourgeois labour party” is inevitable and typical in all imperialist countries”
Vladimir Lenin (1916). Imperialism and the Split in Socialism. [MIA] - ↑ “The trade union movement as it was in 1900 was not one of the entire working class: It was in fact an organisation formed from and working on behalf of a privileged layer of workers who created modern trade unions through the merger of ‘craft unions’”
Jason Turvey (2022-05-31). "Affiliate to Labour? Not us…" Workers Party of Britain. - ↑ “the general staff of the labour movement—the T.U.C. General Council and its “political committee,” the Labour Party—proved to be internally demoralised and corrupted. As we know, the heads of this general staff proved to be either downright traitors to the miners and the British working class in general (Thomas, Henderson, MacDonald and Co.), or spineless fellow-travellers of these traitors who feared a struggle and still more a victory of the working class (Purcell, Hicks and others).”
Joseph Stalin (1926). The British Strike and the Events in Poland. - ↑ “They [the trade unions] had a difficult relationship with Ramsay MacDonald [then Labour leader] who had disapproved of that strike.”
"Lessons from Labour's first economic crisis" (2009-06-04). BBC. - ↑ “Just as during the strike, so now, 25 years later, bourgeois journalists, despicable Labour party bigwigs, contemptible members of the labour aristocracy – all of whom weighed in on the side of the ruling class to defeat the miners, supporting every government, police and judicial outrage against the strikers – instead of blaming the latter’s enemies, continue to blame the miners for the rundown of the industry.”
Harpal Brar (2009-02-01). "History: The 1984/85 miners’ strike" Proletarian. - ↑ Various authors (2018). Public ownership of industries and services: 'A brief history of public ownership in the UK; Post-War nationalisations' (p. 6). [PDF] London: House of Commons Library.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Subversion (2009-12-08). "Labouring in vain: a critical history of the Labour Party" Libcom.org. Archived from the original on 2022-07-15. Retrieved 2022-08-07.
- ↑ "Labour is the party of Nato, the party of war" (2022-05-19). Proletarian.
- ↑ "Yes, Russia should pull out — but Nato's warlike manoeuvres must end too". Morning Star. Archived from the original on 2022-02-22.