The British Labour Party                           labour_sign.gif (1913 Byte)

British Labour Party: History

At the end of the 19th century there was a revolution in the society, a kind of industrial revolution. More and more people moved to the cities to work in the big factories, wich were build in this time as a consequence of inventing the steam - engine . So far it was not possible to produce such lots of wares in such a short time, but non then less it also needed a lot of mans work in the factories. But the workers were not treaded as good as they should be treated. There were no Trade Unions etc. Most people even had to buy their food from the fabrics owner, who could rise and increase in price as he wanted to. Just to sum up it was a very bad situation for them so the British working class was full of a growing discontent about their deficient representation of their interrests in the government. At first they tried to make their life better by founding friendly societys wich tried to protect their members against „debts incurrend through illness, death, or old age" cooperativ society, wich was to sell cheap food, and later trade unions, wich made sure that the conditions were acceptabel, Life Insurance Companies, to let the family go on after ones death, and Fraternal Orders, to take care of eatchother. But this did not seem to be enough. First Organisation like the Fabian Society tried to influence the Liberal and the conservativs, but this was not that succesfull as they hoped it would be. So the Social Democratic Federation (1884) and furthermore the Independent Labour Party (1888) were founded to represent them. In 1900 Deputies of the Trade Unions, the Independent Labour Party, the Fabian Society, and the Social Democratic Federation foundet the Labour Representation Commitee, wich became the British Labour Party in 1906. In the following years then Labour Party had an alliance with the liberals and with this alliance the Labour party won 40 Seats (1910) in the house of commons. 1918 the Labour Party segregated from the Liberals with those help they became a real big Party.


The Labour-idea

"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us theme and to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few…"

Tony Blair - a Labour Party member

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