The Independent Labour Party and Foreign Politics 1918–1923

Abstract

The Independent Labour Party, which was founded in 1893 had, before the 1914–18 war, played a major part within the Labour Party to which it was an affiliated socialist society. It was the largest of the affiliated socialist societies with a pre-eminently working-class membership and leadership. Because the Labour Party did not form an individual members section until 1918, the I.L.P. was one of the means by which it was possible to become an individual member of the Labour Party. But the I.L.P. was also extremely important within the Labour Party in other ways. It was the I.L.P. which supplied the leadership – MacDonald, Hardie and Snowden – of both the Labour Party and the Parliamentary Labour Party. It was the I.L.P., with its national network of branches, which carried through a long-term propaganda programme to the British electorate. Finally, it was the I.L.P. which gave most thought to policy and deeply affected the policy of the Labour Party.