The Labour Party, commonly Labour, is a political party in the United Kingdom. It sits on the centre-left of the left–right political spectrum, and has historically been an alliance of democratic socialists, social democrats and trade unionists. It has been the governing party since the 2024 general election. Andy Burnham became Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2026, succeeding Keir Starmer, who had been elected party leader in 2020 and led Labour into government. There have been twelve Labour governments and eight Labour prime ministers. The party meets annually during Autumn for the Labour Party Conference, during which delegates from local parties and trade unions vote on party policy, and senior figures address the audience from the Conference platform.
The Labour Party was founded in 1900, having emerged from the trade union movement and socialist parties of the 19th century. In 1918 it became guided by socialism and a commitment to "common ownership" via nationalisation. It was electorally weak before the First World War, but in the early 1920s overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party, and briefly formed a minority government under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924. In 1929 Labour became the largest party in the House of Commons for the first time, with 287 seats, but fell short of a majority, forming another minority government. In 1931, in response to the Great Depression, MacDonald formed a new government with Conservative and Liberal support, which led to his expulsion from the party. Labour was soundly defeated by his coalition in 1931, winning only 52 seats, but began to recover in 1935 with 154 seats.
During the Second World War, Labour served in the wartime coalition, after which it won a majority in 1945 under Clement Attlee. Attlee's government enacted extensive nationalisation and established the modern welfare state and National Health Service before losing power in 1951. Under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, Labour again governed from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1979. The party then entered a period of intense internal division, which ended in the defeat of its left wing by the mid-1980s. After electoral defeats to the Conservatives in 1987 and 1992, Tony Blair took the party to the political centre as part of the New Labour rebranding of the party, and it governed under Blair from 1997 to 2007 and Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010. After several electoral defeats in the 2010s, Starmer moved Labour closer to the political centre after replacing Jeremy Corbyn as its leader in 2020, winning the 2024 general election. On 22 June 2026, Starmer resigned as leader, and was succeeded by Burnham the following month.
The party includes semi-autonomous London, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish branches.
The origins of what became the Labour Party emerged in the late 19th century. It represented the interests of the labour unions and more generally the growing urban working class. Hundreds of thousands of workers had recently gained voting rights by laws passed in 1867 and 1884. Many different trade unions flourished in the industrial districts. Their leaders used the Methodist revival tradition to find ways to rally the membership. Several small socialist organisations formed and wanted power based on the working class; the most influential was the Fabian Society, which was made up of middle class reformers. Keir Hardie worked for cooperation among the unions and left-wing groups such as his small Independent Labour Party (ILP).
Labour Representation Committee (1900–1906)
The Labour Party was formed by unions and left-wing groups to create a distinct political voice for the working class in Britain. In 1900 the Trades Union Congress (TUC), an umbrella body for most unions, sponsored a national conference to unite into a single party that would sponsor candidates for the House of Commons. The conference created the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), as a coalition of separate groups with Ramsay MacDonald as secretary. The fearsome issue for labour was the 1901 Taff Vale legal decision which made most strikes illegal; the urgent goal was to get Parliament to reverse it. The LRC cut a secret deal with the Liberal Party: they would not compete against each other in the 1906 general election. Voters gave the Liberals a landslide with 397 seats out of 664; the new LRC won 29 seats. The LRC renamed itself "The Labour Party", with veteran member of Parliament (MP) Keir Hardie narrowly winning the role of leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).
The Labour Party's first national conference in Belfast in 1907 helped shape many of its key policies. Though it never fully resolved the puzzle of where the final decisions ought to lie, rather, the conference created a "conscience clause" allowing diversity of opinions rather than a rigid orthodoxy. Irish politics proved to be so different that the Party simply quit Ireland and worked only in England, Scotland and Wales. In 1908–1910 the Party supported the momentous and largely successful Liberal battles in favour of a welfare state and against the Unionist/Conservative Party and against the veto power of the House of Lords. Growth continued, with 42 Labour MPs elected to the House of Commons in the December 1910 general election. During World War I, the party experienced internal divisions over support for the war effort, but also saw one of its top leaders Arthur Henderson, serve in the powerful war cabinet.
After the war, the party focused on building a strong constituency-based support network and adopted a comprehensive statement of policies titled "Labour and the New Social Order". In 1918, Clause IV was added to Labour's constitution, making a form of socialism the doctrine of the party and committing Labour to work towards common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. Although socialism was vaguely promised, there was no effort made to draw up detailed plans on what that would mean or how it could be accomplished.
The Representation of the People Act 1918 greatly expanded the electorate, enfranchising all men and most women. The party concentrated its appeal on the new electorate with considerable success among working men, but far less success among women. As the Liberal Party collapsed, Labour became the official opposition to the Conservative government. Its support for the war effort demonstrated that the Labour Party was a patriotic and moderate force that solved problems and did not threaten class warfare.
Labour forms a government (1923–1924)
The 1923 election was a pivotal achievement with the formation of the first Labour government. The Conservatives called for high tariffs. Labour and Liberals both wanted free trade. Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald formed a minority government with Liberal support that lasted 10 months. The only domestic achievement was the Wheatley Housing Act, which expanded the large-scale public housing program that started in 1919 with support from all three major parties. MacDonald was much more successful in foreign policy. He helped end the impasse over German payment of reparations by enlisting Washington to launch the Dawes Plan. Much more controversial was his decision to recognise the Soviet Union. That ignited an anti-Communist backlash that exploded four days before the 1924 election in the fake Zinoviev Letter in which Kremlin supposedly called for revolutionary uprising by British workers. The 1924 election saw the Conservatives return to power, benefiting from the Zinoviev letter and the continuing collapse of the Liberal vote. The Labour share of the popular vote went up, but it lost seats. Above all the moderation of the Macdonald government put to rest the lingering fears that a Labour victory would produce a violent class war.
The failed general strike (1926–1929)
In 1925–26, coal sales fell and the mining companies demanded an increase in hours and a cut in wages. The miners were totally opposed and planned a strike. The TUC coalition of unions decided it would support the miners by a nationwide general strike that would paralyse most of the national economy. A strike was postponed when the Conservative government offered a subsidy for wages, but it also prepared to deal with the threatened general strike. Meanwhile, the TUC failed to make preparations. It ignored the Labour Party in and out of Parliament and in turn party leaders opposed a national strike. The 1926 general strike failed after 9 days as the government plan devised by Winston Churchill proved highly effective in keeping the economy open while minimising violence. In the long run, however, the episode tended to strengthen working class support for Labour, and it gained in the 1929 general election, forming a second government with Liberal help.