Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is the main centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. It is a social democratic party. It has been one of the UK's two main political parties from the early 20th century to the present day. It is the largest party in the British House of Commons, with 412 out of 650 seats. It forms the Goverment. The current Labour Party leader and Prime minister is Sir Keir Starmer, who took over in April 2020 from Jeremy Corbyn.

Labour Party
Governing body	National Executive Committee
Leader	Keir Starmer
Deputy Leader	Angela Rayner
General Secretary	David Evans
Lords Leader	Angela Smith, Baroness Smith of Basildon
Founded	27 February 1900; 125 years ago (1900-02-27)[1][2] (as the Labour Representation Committee)
Headquarters	Southside, 105 Victoria Street, London SW1E 6QT[3] Labour Central, Kings Manor, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6PA[4]
Youth wing	Young Labour
LGBT wing	LGBT+ Labour
Membership (February 2025)	309,000[5]
Ideology	Social democracy[6][7]
Political position	Centre-left[13]
European affiliation	Party of European Socialists
International affiliation	Progressive Alliance Socialist International (observer)
Affiliate party	Co-operative Party (Labour and Co-operative) Former affiliates Independent Labour Party (1906–1932) British Socialist Party (1916–1920) National Socialist Party (1918–1939/1942)
Other affiliations	Social Democratic and Labour Party (Northern Ireland) Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party (Gibraltar)[14]
Colours	Red
Slogan	"Britain's future" / "Let's get Britain's future back" (2024)[15][16]
Anthem	"The Red Flag"
Devolved or semi-autonomous branches	London Labour Scottish Labour Welsh Labour Labour Party in Northern Ireland
Parliamentary party	Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)
House of Commons	411 / 650
House of Lords	172 / 777
Scottish Parliament	22 / 129
Senedd	30 / 60
Regional mayors[nb]	11 / 12
London Assembly	11 / 25
PCCs and PFCCs	17 / 37
Directly elected mayors	10 / 16
Councillors[nb][17]	6,561 / 18,646
Website
labour.org.uk
Political parties ^ Mayor of London and 11 combined authority mayors. ^ Councillors of local authorities in England (including 25 aldermen of the City of London) and Scotland, principal councils in Wales and local councils in Northern Ireland.

Keir Starmer has been the Leader of the Labour Party since 4 April 2020.

The Labour Party has been in power in the United Kingdom government since July 2024.^[18] It was in power in the Scottish Parliament (in coalition with the Scottish Liberal Democrats) until 2007. It is the largest group in the London Assembly, although until May 2016 the Mayor of London was a Conservative party member. It is also the largest party in local government.^[19]

History

The party was officially formed in 1906, just after the general election, as a successor of the Labour Representative Committee formed in 1900. In 1918, the party made a new constitution with the commitment to socialism, or the socialization of the industry. This could be found in Clause 4. The Labour Party won the general election in 1945 for the first time. From 1951 Labour was in opposition for thirteen years, during which there were serious fights between the left and right wings of the party. The leader of the left wing was Aneurin Bevan. His supporters were called the "Bevanites". They wanted a less confrontational policy in foreign affairs and more socialist actions. The leaders of the right wing were Clement Attlee and Hugh Gaitskell. They believed that Western capitalism had changed a lot and that socialism and public ownership was not so important. Gaitskell tried to remove Clause 4 from the party constitution at the 1959 conference, but he could not.

In 1994, Tony Blair forced the Labour Party to drop Clause 4. This was an important step to change the party into "New Labour".

In 2015, dark horse candidate Jeremy Corbyn announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Labour Party. At the beginning, he was thought of as a socialist fringe candidate, but he later became the lead candidate in polls and got the support of the majority of trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party, along with those of three non-affiliated unions. On 12 September 2015, he was elected Leader of the Labour Party, with a majority vote of 59.5% in the first round of the ballot.

Past Leaders (since 1906)

• Keir Hardie, 1906–1908
• Arthur Henderson, 1908–1910
• George Nicoll Barnes, 1910–1911
• Ramsay MacDonald, 1911–1914
• Arthur Henderson, 1914–1917
• William Adamson, 1917–1921
• John Robert Clynes, 1921–1922
• Ramsay MacDonald, 1922–1931
• Arthur Henderson, 1931–1932
• George Lansbury, 1932–1935
• Clement Attlee, 1935–1955
• Hugh Gaitskell, 1955–1963
• George Brown, 1963 (Acting)
• Harold Wilson, 1963–1976
• James Callaghan, 1976–1980
• Michael Foot, 1980–1983
• Neil Kinnock, 1983–1992
• John Smith, 1992–1994
• Margaret Beckett, 1994 (Acting)
• Tony Blair, 1994–2007
• Gordon Brown, 2007–2010
• Harriet Harman, 2010 (Acting)
• Ed Miliband, 2010–2015
• Harriet Harman, 2015 (Acting)
• Jeremy Corbyn, 2015–2020
• Keir Starmer, 2020–present

Labour Prime Ministers

Name	Portrait	Country of birth	Time in Office
Ramsay MacDonald		Scotland	1924; 1929–1931
Clement Attlee		England	1945–1951
Harold Wilson		England	1964–1970; 1974–1976
James Callaghan		England	1976–1979
Tony Blair		Scotland	1997–2007
Gordon Brown		Scotland	2007–2010
Keir Starmer[18]		England	2024-present