British Labour Party Research Articles

‘We Can’t Afford to be a Branch Office’: The Territorial Dynamics of the British Labour Party, 2015–2019

Abstract Despite having delivered devolution, the British Labour Party has faced significant challenges in adapting to, and competing effectively in, a multi-level political space. This article explores this dynamic in the context of a pivotal period of change (2015–2019), in which the party was led by Jeremy Corbyn, a political outsider, and when British politics was riven by Brexit. In this article we highlight the operation of a key strategic duality underlying the territorial politics pursued by both Scottish and Welsh Labour parties: an endemic and unresolved desire to seek greater autonomy from the UK party, on the one hand: and the preference to retain or gain influence at the centre of British politics, on the other. How these goals were pursued, and tensions between them managed by the territorial parties and their leaders, are central to an understanding of how the party handled the challenges created by devolution more broadly.

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

Emotion in British politics – a mixed methods analysis of Conservative and Labour Party speeches from 1900–2019

In recent years, an increasing ‘emotionality’ in Britain’s political discourse has been attested by many researchers and public commentators alike, regularly accusing alleged modern-day ‘populists’ of having caused this emotionalization with their unusual conduct and rhetoric. In these analyses, however, emotional speech is too often conflated with ‘populist’ speech, without offering substantial historical proof to support such claims. To scrutinize this alleged novel emotionalization of the general political discourse in Britain and to historically contextualize the influence that alleged ‘populists’ have had on it, I conducted a comparative, sequential mixed methods study of political speeches from British Labour and Conservative Party leaders (quant → QUAL), performing a manual neopragmatist discourse analysis as well as an automated dictionary analysis. With this approach, I was able to determine the distinct argumentative characteristics of the speeches and explore the discourses’ emotional quality, reporting a multitude of qualitative and quantitative differences as well as similarities between the two parties. Thus, the paper offers a (historical) overview of the general employment of emotion within political speech and consequently, argumentation used by British politicians. These findings are then used to contextualize claims about the influence that alleged ‘populists’ have had on the emotionality of recent politics.

Political Parties and the Establishment of Pakistan’s Nation State

Political parties and nation states are the core and foundation of modern politics, and they are the main driving force and achievement to maintain the development of Westphalia system. In a nation state (especially a multi-ethnic country), political parties have actually become the leading force in national construction, political development and inter-ethnic integration. Partition of India in 1947 was an important historic event in Asia and the world in the first half of the 20th century. In this process, the British Labour Party, the Indian Congress Party and the Muslim League actually became the dominant political forces, and the cooperation and games among the political parties contributed to the complete separation of the Indian subcontinent from British colonial rule for 190 years and the construction of independent nation states respectively. In particular, the Muslim League led by Jinnah founded Pakistan, which became a typical case of the construction of a nation state dominated by political parties, and also determined the political trend of Pakistan after the founding of the People’s Republic.

The Western European Left and the First Moon Landing: The Fall of Scientific Enthusiasm and the Ebb of Socialism

During the Cold War, the thinking of Western European social democrats and communists around science shifted from optimism about scientific progress as necessary to solve social problems to scepticism and concern for technological risks and unaccountable technocracy. The first moon landing offers a vantage point to analyse this transition, as it started a debate about science and crystallised hostility towards scientific funding through taxpayers’ money. The reactions of the Western European Left towards Apollo were varied and can be classified into three categories: Big Science Socialism, which celebrated the positive feedback loop between science, state power and socialism; Earth-First Critique, which balanced celebration with reminding of urgent problems on Earth; Radical Anti-Scientism, to which Apollo epitomised imperialistic capitalism and the hegemony of materialistic scientism over humanism. The article examines three figures who approved the Apollo programme for helping collectivism (Tony Benn, Emilio Sereni, Karl Steinbuch) and three figures who condemned it (Marcello Cini, Nigel Calder, Robert Jungk). Beyond these extremes, the article examines the fourth, more nuanced position of the British Labour Party, the German Social Democrats (SPD) and the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which had to reinvent science policies beyond exhausted technocratic dreams and inflexible renunciation of technological modernity.

Anatomy of a Propaganda Campaign

Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the British Labour Party, was subjected to a concerted propaganda campaign by the British right-wing military-industrial establishment and amplified by mainstream media.

Revisiting the Falklands-Malvinas Question: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Revisiting the Falklands-Malvinas Question: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Leadership election reform in the British Labour party: democratisation or power struggle?

This article examines the impact of reforms on the outcome of Labour party leadership contests since the premiership of Tony Blair. From a theoretical perspective, these reforms are characterised by a tension between a general trend towards increasing “democratisation” of political parties and the power interests of intra-party actors. While there have been significant changes to both the nomination stage and the final ballot, the impact of these changes has to be strongly qualified. Instead of a major “democratisation” through targeted and deliberate reform measures, simple shifts in the power structure between strategic actors are more prominent among reform effects. Meanwhile, the trend towards “democratisation” in relation to the final ballot stage was largely driven by the massive membership surge since 2015, as well as low-key reform measures unconnected to handing ordinary party members more influence over the election process.

Pop-socialism: A new radical left politics? Evaluating the rise and fall of the British and Italian left in the anti-austerity age

This article draws from primary research – including 46 semi-structured interviews – to provide a comparative analysis of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the British Labour Party between 2015 and 2020, and Nichi Vendola’s leadership of the Italian radical left between 2010 and 2015. It is claimed that both cases represent a new form of left politics – which we term pop-socialism – that combines popular-democratic appeals to the ‘people’ with the traditional class-based demands of democratic socialism. This contributes to recent literature on radical left politics and left populism by providing an insight into the underexplored relationship between popular-democratic and class politics. Moreover, the article provides an important empirical account of Corbyn and Vendola’s rapid mobilisation but also their equally abrupt decline.

Social Darwinism, the British Labour Party, and the First World War

ABSTRACT This article investigates whether the doctrine of social Darwinism had any bearing on the Labour Party’s decision to support Britain’s participation in the First World War. Many socialist intellectuals were wedded to social Darwinist conceptions of the world. The Independent Labour Party (ILP) published a number of tracts on the interrelationship between Darwinism or science and politics. The article looks for evidence of biological thinking in the Labour Party and the ILP prior to the First World War. It finds only small traces, vastly outweighed by environmental remedies to problems that were regarded as biological by social Darwinists. The labour movement also stood for pacifism as a signature policy. Yet when the war erupted, there was a sudden shift among Labour MPs towards supporting belligerent action. Did social Darwinism finally begin affecting them? Since there was only a slight connection between the doctrine and a few MPs, the article concludes that it was hardly an influence. Pragmatic reasons such as rallying to one’s own nation, supporting working-class communities and resisting atrocities predominated. Social Darwinism was in fact more likely to be utilized by neutralists who argued that Germany was more “civilized” than Russia and therefore deserved to win the war.

The Impact of the British Labour Party on the Dissidence of Milovan Djilas 1950–1958

The article analyses the influence of the leadership of the British Labour Party on the first Cold War dissident, Milovan Djilas. Up until his dissidence in 1954, the main Yugoslav official for official relations with the British Left was Djilas. He had many contacts with the members of the British Labour Party such as Morgan Phillips, Aneurin Bevan and Jennie Lee. While many of these contacts were professional, Djilas established a firm friendship with Bevan, under whose influence Djilas gradually abandoned communism and embraced the Labour movement. When he called for another party in Yugoslavia (one similar to the Labour Party), he was condemned by Tito’s regime.

To build a new Jezrusalem: an historical institutionalist analysis of the origins of the Corbyn era in the Labour party

Now that Corbynism has passed, an institutional explanation for his sudden control of the British Labour party allows for a richer understanding of the process by which his leadership came about. In particular, this analysis develops on the established institutional theory ideas of reactivation, invasion and veto players and adds to these the role of “veto complacency”. These theoretical mechanisms are key to understanding why the British Labour party changed so radically after its 2015 electoral defeat, and why it is suspect to argue that its then leader, Jeremy Corbyn, represented merely a return to the past, as some have suggested. The ideas of the Corbyn movement can be understood as having been a contemporary adaptation of socialism, namely “new socialism”. This case study highlights the usefulness of applying institutional theory mechanisms to explanations of party change and seeks to expand on current dominant theories of institutional change that appear less capable of explaining sudden radical endogenous change—as exhibited here by the British Labour party.

The British Labour Party and the antisemitism crisis: Jeremy Corbyn and image repair theory

This article utilises the work of William Benoit on image repair theory as a framework for examining the crisis communication of Jeremy Corbyn in relation to antisemitism within the Labour Party. By examining the self-defence rhetoric of Corbyn on the antisemitism allegations, the article identifies the following. Of the five strategies for crisis communication, Corbyn was overly reliant on denial, evading responsibility and reducing offensiveness; struggled to explain his attempts at corrective action; and reverted to accepting responsibility – that is, apologies – reluctantly and belatedly. Utilising existing perspectives on the most effective strategies for image repair – which emphasise the importance of effective corrective action and accepting responsibility at the expense of denial, evading responsibility and reducing effectiveness – the article argues that Corbyn undermined his own attempts at image repair in the crisis that defined his leadership.

The shifting class-base of social democratic parties in Western Europe

ABSTRACT In a classic piece, Przeworski and Sprague describe an electoral dilemma of social democratic parties: they need to attract middle-class voters without losing support in the shrinking working-class. With cultural issues (e.g. immigration) becoming more salient, this dilemma has intensified recently as the positions of both classes differ markedly on those issues. Against this background, we analyse the class base of social democratic parties in 13 Western European countries using data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018). Our exploratory study shows that in almost all countries support for social democrats has decreased across all classes. Yet, we still find significant differences in the social democrats’ class bases. In Denmark, Sweden or Spain, social democrats still largely base their support on service and particularly production workers, while in France or Switzerland, these groups no longer primarily vote for social democrats. Here middle-class people, particularly socio-cultural professionals, are the strongest supporters of social democrats. Countries such as Germany or Norway exhibit no clear social democratic class base and gaining support from both groups at the same time seems to be most difficult. Only the British Labour Party succeeded to some extent in the balancing act of winning both middle- and working-class voters.

New Jerusalems? The Labour Party's Economic Policy‐Making in Hard Times

AbstractThis paper is an historical analysis of ideational change in the British Labour Party. It briefly examines two critical phases of economic policy formation: the aftermath of the Great Depression and the MacDonald administration's implosion in 1931 until the outbreak of the Second World War; alongside Labour's experience following the 2008 financial crisis and electoral defeat in 2010 through to Jeremy Corbyn's emergence as leader. Throughout both periods, the aftershocks of financial crises stimulated a ferment of new thinking about the management of the British economy. Think tanks, universities and professionally trained economists aided the left in devising a new economic narrative and programme. For all the criticism of Corbyn's performance as leader, it was only after his victory in 2015 that a serious debate about ideas emerged within the party, more than seven years since the great financial crisis.

Introduction: Corbynism and its Aftermath

Introduction: Corbynism and its Aftermath

Labour United and Divided from the 1830s to the Present ed. by Emmanuelle Avril and Yann Béliard

Book Review| March 01 2021 Labour United and Divided from the 1830s to the Present ed. by Emmanuelle Avril and Yann Béliard Labour United and Divided from the 1830s to the Present, Avril, Emmanuelle; Béliard, Yann, eds., Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018, 312 pp., £80.00 (cloth) Máirtín Ó Catháin Máirtín Ó Catháin University of Central Lancashire Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Labor (2021) 18 (1): 98–100. https://doi.org/10.1215/15476715-8767386 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter Email Permissions Search Site Citation Máirtín Ó Catháin; Labour United and Divided from the 1830s to the Present ed. by Emmanuelle Avril and Yann Béliard. Labor 1 March 2021; 18 (1): 98–100. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15476715-8767386 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter Books & JournalsAll JournalsLabor Search Advanced Search Conference proceedings do not always make the best publications and at times are only broadly organized by theme. The time that elapses between the original gathering and the finished product can also frustrate conclusions as new perspectives or developments appear. The divisions that have recently dogged the British Labour Party form the raison d’être for this volume even as the collapse of the party’s performance in the December 2019 election in some ways undermines it. In an excellent introduction surveying some two centuries of divisions in the British (though mainly English) labor movement, the editors are at pains to stress the book’s avoidance of teleology while fully embracing its genesis in the debate over Corbynism. In many of the chapters in this volume, particularly those concerned with the Labour Party, there is a recurrent discussion of left-wing challenges to the notion... © 2021 by Labor and Working-Class History Association2021 You do not currently have access to this content.

Antiwar campaign of the British Labour Party in the early World War I

This article is dedicated to the protest campaign of Labour Party of Great Britain, which unfolded in the early World War I. Based on the range of sources, such as socialist workers’ press of Great Britain, party documents, parliamentary debated, the author sets a goal to examine the key arguments of the opponents, namely activists of the Independent Workers’ Party, which became a stronghold of antiwar sentiment of the Labours. Special attention is given to such publicists as R. MacDonald and K. Hardy. The article also traces the evolution of antiwar campaign and reveals the reasons. Research methodology is based on the systematic approach towards analysis of public speeches of British activists printed in the workers' socialist publications of antiwar orientation. It is demonstrated how in the space of a few days, in August 1914, the moods of majority of the British workers changed dramatically, from unreserved condemnation of the war expressed in the slogans of the Second International towards support of the government in the fight against militaristic Germany. The conclusion is drawn that in the initial months of war, the antiwar campaign has experienced significant transformation. If in the early period it was characterized mostly by the emotional and somewhat sarcastic rhetoric, then later on the background of tremendous human losses, the campaign adopted a rather moderate tone. Attempts of the publicists to grasp on causes of war and focus the need to rebuild society after its completion comes to the forefront.

Social Policy in the Theoretical and Programme Documents of the British Labour Party in the 1920s–1930s

This article covers the concepts of social policy in the official programme documents of the British Labour Party and in journalistic works of its leaders and key theorists of the interwar period. From the early twentieth century, Labourists put the focus not on social reforms, but on transformations in the management of the economy and property. They believed that a fair and effective organisation of economy could at the same time solve social problems. After World War I and in the first half of the 1920s, Labourists did not propose large-scale and high-priced social programmes for fear of alienating their potential electorate. However, the social and economic problems of the 1920s, the General Strike, and the Great Depression forced them to take a more left stand. From the late 1920s, social policy became for Labourists an important part of fundamental change of the country’s economy based on the principles of planning and public control. These ideas were in the programmes of the Labour party of 1928 and 1934, in the works of G. D. H. Cole and Clement Attlee, and in the articles of members of the Socialist League. Labourists started proposing not only large-scale plans of the improvement of education, public health, accommodation, and well-being, they made some demands, including State Health Service, accessibility of higher education, and help for disabled persons, unique for their times, thereby anticipating some important components of the Welfare State of the second half of the twentieth century.

Left politics and popular culture in Britain: From left-wing populism to ‘popular leftism’

This article analyses the cultural traction and media visibility yielded by left-wing ideas and people during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as British Labour Party leader (2015–2019), while also offering some more general reflections on the relationship between left politics and popular culture. I begin by noting that the cultural and media aspects of Corbynism have largely been neglected in the scholarly literature. I then go on to caution against the temptation of subsuming the cultural aspects of Corbyn-era left politics under the label of ‘left-wing populism’. Instead, I defend a conception of ‘popular leftism’ as distinct from ‘left-wing populism’, via an engagement with Stuart Hall’s classic essay ‘Notes on Deconstructing the Popular’, as well as Sarah Banet-Wesier’s recent work on popular feminism. The second half of the article maps key features of ‘popular leftism’ as a distinct cultural/political formation that has emerged ‘in and against’ neoliberalism. In particular, it focuses on media visibility, affective tenor, and tactical and intellectual dynamics. While popular leftism’s entanglement with neoliberalism has proved problematic for its transformative capacity, I nonetheless conclude that its emergence is testament to the importance of popular cultural production and consumption in shaping recent iterations of left politics in Britain.