Independent Labour Party - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave. The organisation's three parliamentary representatives defected to the Labour Party in 1947 and it was finally dissolved in 1975.

Foundation

As the 19th Century came to a close, working class representation in political office became a prominent issue for many Britons. Many who sought the election of working men and their advocates to the Parliament of the United Kingdom

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

saw the Liberal Party

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

as the main vehicle for achieving this aim. As early as 1869 a Labour Representation League

Labour Representation League

The Labour Representation League, organised in 1869, was a forerunner of the British Labour Party. Its original purpose was to register the working class to vote, and get workers into Parliament. It had limited power and was never intended to become a full political party, but played a role in...

had been established to register and mobilise working class voters on behalf of favoured Liberal candidates.

Many trade unions themselves became concerned with gaining parliamentary representation to advance their legislative aims. From the 1870s a series of working class candidates financially supported by trade unions were accepted and supported by the Liberal Party. The federation of British unions, the Trades Union Congress

Trades Union Congress

The Trades Union Congress is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in the United Kingdom, representing the majority of trade unions...

, formed its own electoral committee in 1886 to further advance its electoral goals.

Many socialist intellectuals, particularly those influenced by Christian socialism

Christian socialism

Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel...

and similar notions of the ethical need for a restructuring of society, also saw the Liberals as the most obvious means for obtaining working class representation. Within two years of its foundation in 1884 the gradualist Fabian Society

Fabian Society

The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...

officially committed itself to a policy of permeation of the Liberal Party.

A number of so-called "Lib-Lab" candidates were subsequently elected Members of Parliament by this alliance of trade unions and radical

Political radicalism

The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...

intellectuals working within the Liberal Party.

The idea of working with the middle class Liberal Party to achieve working class representation in parliament was not universally accepted, however. Marxist socialists, believing in the inevitability of class struggle between the working class and the owning class, rejected the idea of workers making common cause with the petty bourgeois Liberals in exchange for scraps of charity from the legislative table. The orthodox British Marxists established their own party, the Social Democratic Federation

Social Democratic Federation

The Social Democratic Federation was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on June 7, 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury and Eleanor Marx. However, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's long-term...

(SDF) in 1881.

Other socialist intellectuals, despite not sharing the concept of class struggle were nonetheless frustrated with the ideology and institutions of the Liberal Party and the secondary priority which it appeared to give to its working class candidates. Out of these ideas and activities came a new generation of activists including, perhaps most notably Keir Hardie

Keir Hardie

James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

, a Scot who had become convinced of the need for independent labour politics whilst working as a Gladstonian Liberal and trade union organiser in the Lanarkshire coalfield. Working with SDF members such as Henry Hyde Champion

Henry Hyde Champion

Henry Hyde Champion was a socialist journalist and activist, regarded as one of the leading spirits behind the formation of the Independent Labour Party...

and Tom Mann

Tom Mann

Tom Mann was a noted British trade unionist. Largely self-educated, Mann became a successful organiser and a popular public speaker in the labour movement.-Early years:...

he was instrumental in the foundation of the Scottish Labour Party in 1888.

In 1890 the United States imposed a tariff on foreign cloth which led to a general cut in wages throughout the British textile industry. There followed a strike in Bradford

Bradford

Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...

, the Manningham Mills strike, which produced as a by-product the Bradford Labour Union, an organisation which sought to function politically independently of either major political party. This initiative was replicated by others in Colne Valley

Colne Valley

The Colne Valley is a steep sided valley on the east flank of the Pennine Hills in the English county of West Yorkshire. It takes its name from the River Colne which rises above the town of Marsden and flows eastward along the floor of the valley....

, Slaithwaite

Slaithwaite

Slaithwaite is a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. It lies in the Colne Valley laying across the River Colne and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, approximately southwest of Huddersfield. The pronunciation of Slaithwaite varies...

and Salford. Such developments showed that working class support for separation from the Liberal Party was growing in strength.

Further arguments for the formation of a new party were to be found in Robert Blatchford

Robert Blatchford

Robert Peel Glanville Blatchford was a socialist campaigner, journalist and author in the United Kingdom. He was a prominent atheist and opponent of eugenics. He was also an English patriot...

’s newspaper The Clarion
The Clarion
The Clarion was a weekly newspaper published by Robert Blatchford, based in the United Kingdom. It was a socialist publication though adopting a British-focused rather than internationalist perspective on political affairs, as seen in its support of the British involvement in the Anglo-Boer Wars...

, founded in 1891, and in Workman’s Times. edited by Joseph Burgess

Joseph Burgess

Joseph Burgess was a British journalist and Labour politician.He was born on 3 July 1853 in Failsworth, Lancashire, the third of six children of handloom weavers, and educated at a print works school in Failsworth. He started work in a card-cutting room at the age of six and worked as a cotton...

. The latter collected some 3500 names of those in favour of creating a party of labour independent from the existing political organisations.

In the 1892 General Election

United Kingdom general election, 1892

The 1892 United Kingdom general election was held from 4 July to 26 July 1892. It saw the Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury, win the greatest number of seats, but not enough for an overall majority as William Ewart Gladstone's Liberals won many more seats than in the 1886 general election...

, held in July, three working men were elected without support from the Liberals, Keir Hardie

Keir Hardie

James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

in South West Ham

West Ham South (UK Parliament constituency)

West Ham South was a parliamentary constituency in the County Borough of West Ham, in what was then Essex but is now Greater London. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first-past-the-post voting system.- History...

, John Burns

John Burns

John Elliot Burns was an English trade unionist and politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly associated with London politics. He was a socialist and then a Liberal Member of Parliament and Minister. He was anti-alcohol and a keen sportsman...

in Battersea, and Havelock Wilson in Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough (UK Parliament constituency)

Middlesbrough is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.- Boundaries :...

, the last of whom actually faced Liberal opposition. Hardie owed nothing to the Liberal Party for his election, and his critical and confrontational style in Parliament caused him to emerge as a national voice of the labour movement.

At a TUC meeting in September 1892 a call was issued for a meeting of advocates of independent labour organisation. An arrangements committee was established and a conference called for the following January. This conference was chaired by William Henry Drew

William Henry Drew

William Henry Drew was a British textile worker, early trade unionist and one of the founders of the Independent Labour Party.-Early years:W. H. Drew was born in Exeter in 1854 and by the mid 1860s was working in agriculture...

and was held in Bradford 14–16 January 1893. It proved to be the foundation conference of the Independent Labour Party and MP Keir Hardy was elected its first chairman.

The inaugural conference, although deciding to name itself "Labour" rather than "Socialist," nonetheless overwhelmingly accepted that the object of the party should be ‘to secure the collective and communal ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange’. The party’s programme called for a range of ameliorative reforms, including an eight hour working day, provision for the sick, disabled aged, widows, and orphans, and free ‘unsectarian’ education ‘right up to the universities’.

The conference also established the basic organisational structure of the new party. Annual Conferences, composed of delegates from each local unit of the organisation, were declared the ‘supreme and governing authority of the party’. A Secretary was to be elected, to serve under the direct control of a central body known as the National Administrative Committee (NAC). This NAC was in turn to be made up of regionally appointed delegates who were in theory confined to act according to the instructions given them by branch conferences.

Early years

The new party was founded in a social environment of great hope and expectation. However, the first few years were difficult. The direction of the party, its leadership and organisation were heavily contested and the expected electoral progress did not emerge.

The party did not fare well in its first major test of national support, the 1895 General Election. With the NAC taking a lead in organising the party’s contests, and with finance tight just 28 candidates ran under the ILP banner. A special conference decided that support could be given to either ILP or SDF candidates, which brought a further four contests into the picture. None was elected, however, with even the popular party leader Keir Hardie going to defeat in a straight fight with the Conservatives. The electoral debacle of 1895 marked an end to the unbridled optimism which had attended the party’s foundation.

From its beginning, the ILP was never a homogenous unit, but rather attempted to act as a "big tent

Big tent

In politics, a big tent party or catch-all party is a political party seeking to attract people with diverse viewpoints. The party does not require adherence to some ideology as a criterion for membership...

" party of the working class, advocating a rather vague and amorphous socialist agenda. Historian Robert E. Dowse has observed:

"From the beginning the ILP attempted to influence the trade unions to back a working class political party: they sought, as Henry Pelling
Henry Pelling
Henry Mathison Pelling , was a British historian best known for his works on the history of the British Labour Party, including:*The Origins of the Labour Party and*A Short History of the Labour Party ....

states: 'collaboration with trade unionists with the ultimate object of tapping trade union funds for the attainment of Parliamentary power.' The socialism of the ILP was ideal for achieving this end; lacking as it did any real theoretical
Theoretician (Marxism)
A theoretician is a term from the vernacular of Marxism relating to an individual who observes and writes about the condition or dynamics of society, history, or economics, making use of the main principles of Marxian socialism in the analysis....

basis it could accommodate practically anything a trade unionist was likely to demand. Fervent and emotional, the socialism of the ILP could accommodate, with only a little strain, temperance reform, Scottish nationalism
Scottish national identity
Scottish national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity and common culture of Scottish people and is shared by a considerable majority of the people of Scotland....

, Methodism
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...

, Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, Fabian gradualism, and even a variety of Burkean
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....

conservatism
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

. Although the mixture was a curious one, it did have the one overwhelming virtue of excluding nobody on dogmatic grounds, a circumstance, on the left and at the time, cannot be lightly dismissed."

Of course in a party of loose and diverse opinions, the essential nature of the organisation and its programme would always remain a matter of debate. Initial decisions about party organisation were rooted in an idea of strict democracy. These arguments did have some impact, as the conference held to set policy prior to the 1895 General Election and the abolition of the position of party ‘President’ in 1896 testified to the power of such arguments. Nonetheless, the NAC came to possess considerable power over the party’s activities, including hegemonistic control over crucial matters such as electoral decisions and relations with other parties. The electoral defeat of 1895 saw a hastened such centralising and anti-democratic processes.
In the last years of the 19th Century, four figures emerged on the NAC who remained at the centre of the party shaping its direction for the next 20 years. In addition to the beloved party leader Keir Hardie came the Scot Bruce Glasier, elected to the NAC in 1897 and succeeding Hardie as Chairman in 1900; Phillip Snowden, an evangelical socialist from the West Riding, and Ramsay MacDonald

Ramsay MacDonald

James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....

, whose adhesion to the ILP had been secured in the wake of his disillusionment with the Liberal Party over its rejection of trade unionist candidate in the 1894 Sheffield Attercliffe by-election. While there were substantial personal tensions between the four, they shared a fundamental view that the party should seek alliance with the unions and rather than an ideology-based socialist unity with the Marxist Social Democratic Federation

Social Democratic Federation

.

Following the failure of 1895, this leadership core were cautious to the extreme about overextending the party by running in too many electoral races. By 1898 the decision was formally made to restrict electoral contests to those where a reasonable performance could be expected rather than putting forward as many candidates as possible to maximise exposure for the party and to accumulate a maximum total vote.

The relationship with the trade unions was also problematic. In the 1890s the ILP was lacking in alliances with the trade union organisations. Individual rank and file

Rank and file

In politics and labor unions the rank and file are the individual members of an organization, exclusive of its leadership. The phrase originated in the military, denoting the horizontal "ranks" and vertical "files" of individual foot-soldiers, exclusive of the noncommissioned officers....

trade unionists could be persuaded to join the party out of a political commitment shaped by their industrial experiences, but connection with top leaderships was lacking.

The ILP played a central role in the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, and when the Labour Party was formed in 1906, the ILP immediately affiliated to it. This affiliation allowed the ILP to continue to hold its own conferences and devise its own policies, which ILP members were expected to argue for within the Labour Party. In return, the ILP provided a good part of Labour's activist base during its early years.

The party matures

The emergence and growth of the Labour Party, a federation of trade unions with the socialist intellectuals of the ILP, helped its constituent parts develop and grow. In contrast to the doctrinaire Marxism of the SDF and its even more orthodox off-shoots like the Socialist Labour Party

Socialist Labour Party (UK, 1903)

The Socialist Labour Party was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1903 as a splinter from the Social Democratic Federation by James Connolly, Neil Maclean and SDF members impressed with the politics of the American socialist Daniel De Leon, a Marxist...

and the Socialist Party of Great Britain

Socialist Party of Great Britain

The Socialist Party of Great Britain , is a small Marxist political party within the impossibilist tradition. It is best known for its advocacy of using the ballot box for revolutionary purposes; opposition to reformism; and its early adoption of the theory of state capitalism to describe the...

, the ILP had a loose and inspirational flavor that made it relatively more easy to attract newcomers. Victor Grayson

Victor Grayson

Albert Victor Grayson was an English socialist politician of the early 20th century. A Member of Parliament from 1907 to 1910, his sudden and still-unexplained disappearance in 1920 is widely believed to have been the result of his intention to reveal evidence of corruption at the highest levels...

recalled a 1906 campaign in the Colne Valley

Colne Valley

which he was proud to have conducted "like a religious revival," without reference to specific political problems. Future party chairman Fenner Brockway later recounted the revivalist mood of the gatherings of his local ILP branch gathering in 1907:

"On Sunday nights a meeting was conducted rather on the lines of the Labour Church Movement — we had a small voluntary orchestra, sang Labour songs and the speeches were mostly Socialist evangelism
Evangelism
Evangelism refers to the practice of relaying information about a particular set of beliefs to others who do not hold those beliefs. The term is often used in reference to Christianity....

, emotion in denunciation of injustice, visionary in their anticipation of a new society."

While this inspirational presentation of socialism as a humanitarian

Humanitarianism

In its most general form, humanitarianism is an ethic of kindness, benevolence and sympathy extended universally and impartially to all human beings. Humanitarianism has been an evolving concept historically but universality is a common element in its evolution...

necessity made the party accessible as a sort of secular religion or a means for the practical implementation of Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

principles in daily life, it bore with it the great weakness of being non-analytical and thus comparatively shallow. As the historian John Callaghan has noted, in the hands of Hardie, Glasier, Snowden and MacDonald socialism was little more than "a vague protest against injustice."

Still, the relationship between the ILP and the Labour Party was characterised by conflict. Many ILP members viewed the Labour Party as being too timid and moderate in their attempts at social reform, detached as it was from the socialist objective during its first years. Consequently, in 1912 came a split in which many ILP branches chose to amalgamate with the SDF of H. M. Hyndman in 1912 to found the British Socialist Party

British Socialist Party

The British Socialist Party was a Marxist political organisation established in Great Britain in 1911. Following a protracted period of factional struggle, in 1916 the party's anti-war forces gained decisive control of the party and saw the defection of its pro-war Right Wing...

The ILP and the Great War

On April 11, 1914 the party celebrated its 21st anniversary with a congress in Bradford. The party had grown well in the previous decade, standing with a membership of approximately 30,000. The rank and file

Rank and file

membership of the party as well as its leadership were pacifist, now as ever, having held from the beginning that war was "sinful."

The guns of August 1914 shook every left organisation in Britain. As one observer later put it: "Hyndman and Cunningham Graham, Thorne

Will Thorne

William James Thorne CBE , known as Will Thorne, was a British trade unionist, activist and one of the first Labour Members of Parliament .-Early years:...

and Clynes had sought peace while it endured, but now that war had come, well, Socialists and Trade Unionists, like other people had got to see it through." With respect to the Labour Party, most of the members of the organisation's executive as well as most of the 40 Labour MPs in Parliament lent their support to the recruiting campaign for the Great War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Only one section held aloof — the Independent Labour Party.

The ILP's insistence on standing by its long-held ethically based objections to militarism

Militarism

Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....

and war proved costly in terms both in terms of its standing in the eyes of the general public as well as its ability to hold sway over the politicians who ran under its banner. A stream of its old Members of Parliament left the party over the ILP's refusal to support the British war effort. Among those breaking ranks were George Nicoll Barnes

George Nicoll Barnes

George Nicoll Barnes CH PC was a Scottish politician and a leader of the Labour Party.Barnes was born in Lochee, Dundee, the second of five sons of James Barnes, a skilled engineer and mill manager from Yorkshire, and his wife, Catherine Adam Langlands...

, J. R. Clynes, James Parker

James Parker (Labour politician)

James Parker was a British Labour Party politician.He was elected as Member of Parliament for Halifax at the 1906 general election, and held the seat the town's representation was reduced to one seat at the 1918 general election...

, George Wardle

George Wardle

George James Wardle OCH was a British politician. He was editor of the Railway Review and in 1906 was elected a Labour Member of Parliament for Stockport...

and G. H. Roberts.

Others held true to the party and its principles. Ramsay MacDonald, a committed pacifist, immediately resigned the chairmanship of the Labour Party in the House of Commons. Keir Hardie, Philip Snowden, W. C. Anderson

William Crawford Anderson

William Crawford Anderson was a British socialist politician.Born on 13 February 1877 at Findon, Aberdeenshire, the name Crawford in fact does not appear on his birth certificate. His father Francis Anderson was a blacksmith, who married in 1868, Barbara Cruickshank, an ardent radical; she being...

, and a small group of like-minded radical pacifists, maintained an unflinching opposition to the government and its pro-war Labour allies.

The ILP and the Third International

Following the termination of World War I

World War I

in November 1918, the Second International

Second International

The Second International , the original Socialist International, was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated...

was effectively relaunched and the question of whether the ILP should affiliate with this renewed Second International or some other international grouping loomed large. In January was issued a call from Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

for the formation of a new Third International

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

, a formation which held great appeal to a small section of the ILP's most radical members. The majority of ILP members saw the old Second International as hopelessly compromised by its support for the European bloodbath of 1914 and the ILP formally disaffiliated from the International in the spring of 1920.

The conservative leadership of the ILP, notably Ramsay MacDonald

Ramsay MacDonald

James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....

and Philip Snowden, strongly opposed affiliation to the new Comintern. In opposition to them the radical wing of the ILP organised itself as a formal faction called the Left Wing Group of the ILP in an effort to move the ILP into the Communist International. The faction began to publish its own bi-weekly newspaper called The International, a 4-page broadsheet

Broadsheet

Broadsheet is the largest of the various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages . The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a single sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of material, from ballads to political satire. The first broadsheet...

published in Glasgow

In addition to cutting its ties with the Second International, the 1920 Annual Conference of the ILP directed its executive to contact the Swiss Socialist Party with a view to establishing an all-inclusive international which would join the internationalist left wing socialist parties with their revolutionary socialist

Revolutionary socialism

The term revolutionary socialism refers to Socialist tendencies that advocate the need for fundamental social change through revolution by mass movements of the working class, as a strategy to achieve a socialist society...

brethren of the new Moscow international. A further set of questions were asked of the Comintern in letter dated 21 May 1920 by ILP Chairman Richard Wallhead and National Council member Clifford Allen. The Executive Committee of the Communist International

Executive Committee of the Communist International

The Executive Committee of the Communist International, commonly known by its acronym, ECCI, was the governing authority of the Comintern between the World Congresses of that body...

(ECCI) was asked for its positions on such matters as demands for rigid adherence to its program, applicability of the dictatorship of the proletariat

Dictatorship of the proletariat

In Marxist socio-political thought, the dictatorship of the proletariat refers to a socialist state in which the proletariat, or the working class, have control of political power. The term, coined by Joseph Weydemeyer, was adopted by the founders of Marxism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in the...

and the Soviet system

Soviet (council)

Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....

to Great Britain, and its view on the necessity of armed force as a universal principle.

The reply of the fledgling Comintern in July 1920 was unequivocal. While the presence of communists inside the organisation was acknowledged, and their membership in a new Communist Party welcomed, there would be no joint organisation with those like "the Fabians, Ramsay MacDonald

Ramsay MacDonald

James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....

, and Snowden" who had previously made use of "the musty atmosphere of parliamentary work" and "petty concessions and compromises" on behalf of the labour movement:

"[T]hese leaders have lost touch with the wide unskilled masses, with the toiling poor, they have become oblivious of the growth of capitalist exploitation and of the revolutionary aims of the proletariat. It seemed to them that because the capitalists treated them as equals, as partners in their transactions, the working class had secured equal rights with capital. their own social standing secure and material position improved, they looked upon the world through the rose-coloured spectacles of a peaceful middle-class life. Disturbed in their peaceful trading with the representatives of the bourgeoisie by the revolutionary strivings of the proletariat they were the convinced enemies of the revolutionary aims of the proletariat."

ECCI instead made its appeal directly to "the communists of the Independent Labour Party," noting that "the revolutionary forces of England are split up" and urging them to unite with communist members of the British Socialist Party

British Socialist Party

, the Socialist Labour Party

Socialist Labour Party (UK)

The Socialist Labour Party is a far left socialist political party in the United Kingdom. The party is led by former trade union leader Arthur Scargill, who established it in 1996 as a breakaway from the Labour Party...

, and radical groups in Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

and Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. "The emancipation of the British working class and of the working class of the whole world depends upon the Communist elements of England forming a single Communist Party," ECCI declared.

The agitation for affiliation to the Third International of Moscow came to a head in 1921 at the annual conference of the ILP. There an overwhelming vote of the party's branches voted not to affiliate with the Third International. This decision was followed by the exit of the defeated radical faction, which included economist Emile Burns, journalist R. Palme Dutt, and Member of Parliament Shapurji Saklatvala

Shapurji Saklatvala

Shapurji Saklatvala was a British politician of Indian Parsi heritage. He was the third Indian Member of Parliament in the Parliament of the United Kingdom after fellow Parsis Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Bhownagree....

, who joined forces in establishing the Communist Party of Great Britain

Communist Party of Great Britain

The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...

(CPGB) in August 1920.

The "centrism

Centrism

In politics, centrism is the ideal or the practice of promoting policies that lie different from the standard political left and political right. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of left-right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between...

" of the ILP, caught between the reformist politics of the Second International and the revolutionary

Revolutionary

A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...

politics of the Third International, led it to leading a number of other European socialist groups into the "Second and a Half International" between 1921 and 1923. The party was a member of the Labour and Socialist International

Labour and Socialist International

The Labour and Socialist International was an international organization of socialist and labour parties, active between 1923 and 1940. The LSI was a forerunner of the present-day Socialist International....

between 1923 and 1933.

The ILP and Labour Party government (1922-1931)

At the 1922 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1922

The United Kingdom general election of 1922 was held on 15 November 1922. It was the first election held after most of the Irish counties left the United Kingdom to form the Irish Free State, and was won by Andrew Bonar Law's Conservatives, who gained an overall majority over Labour, led by John...

several ILP members became MPs (including future ILP leader James Maxton

James Maxton

James Maxton was a Scottish socialist politician, and leader of the Independent Labour Party. A prominent proponent of Home Rule for Scotland, he is remembered as one of the leading figures of the Red Clydeside era.-Early years:...

) and the party grew in stature. The ILP provided many of the new Labour MPs, including John Wheatley

John Wheatley

John Wheatley was a Scottish socialist politician. He was a prominent figure of the Red Clydeside era.Wheatley was born in Bonmahon, County Waterford, Ireland, to Thomas and Johanna Wheatley. In 1876 the family moved to Braehead, Lanarkshire in Scotland...

, Emanuel Shinwell, Tom Johnston

Thomas Johnston

Thomas "Tom" Johnston CH was a prominent Scottish socialist and politician of the early 20th century, a member of the Labour Party, a Member of Parliament and government minister – usually with Cabinet responsibility for Scottish affairs.-Red Clydesider:Johnston, the son of a middle-class...

and David Kirkwood

David Kirkwood

David Kirkwood, 1st Baron Kirkwood, PC was a socialist from the East End of Glasgow, Scotland, viewed as a leading figure of the Red Clydeside era.Kirkwood was educated at Parkhead Public School and was trained as an engineer....

. However, the first Labour government (returned to office in 1924) proved to be hugely disappointing to the ILP. Their response was to devise their own programme for government but the Labour Party leadership rejected this.

For the duration of the second Labour government (1929–31) 37 Labour MPs were sponsored by the ILP and they provided the left opposition to the Labour leadership. The 1930 ILP conference decided that where their policies diverged from the Labour Party their MPs should break the whip to support the ILP policy.

1928 policy conferences

Throughout 1928, the ILP developed a "Socialism in Our Time" platform, embodied in the programme:

The Living Wage, incompletely applied
A substantial increase of the Unemployment Allowance
The nationalisation of banking, incompletely applied
The bulk purchase of raw materials
The bulk purchase of foodstuffs
The nationalisation of power
The nationalisation of transport
The nationalisation of land

Of these eight policies, the living wage, the unemployment allowance, nationalisation of banking and the bulk purchase of raw materials and foodstuffs were the chief concern of the ILP. Increasing the unemployment allowance and switching to bulk purchasing were to be done in the conventional way, but the method of paying the living wage differed from Labor practices. The ILP criticised the "Continental" method of paying wage allowances from employers' pools, which had been implemented in 1924 by Rhys Davies

Rhys Davies (politician)

Rhys John Davies was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician.Davies was born in Llangennech, Carmarthenshire, Wales, the son of Rhys and Ann Davies. After an elementary education he initially worked as a farm labourer. He subsequently moved to the Rhondda Valley, where he worked as a...

. The ILP proposed to redistribute the national income, meeting the cost of the allowances by taxing high income earners.

The nationalisation of banking involved more significant changes to economic policy, and had nothing in common with Labor practices. The ILP proposed that once the Labor Government takes office, it should hold an enquiry into the banks and financial firms — what it called the banking system. The objective of this enquiry is to end the policy of deflation practised by the Treasury and the Bank of England, through the nationalisation of the major banks, beginning with the Bank of England. The enquiry will prepare a detailed scheme for transferring the Bank of England to public control and then revise the operation of the Bank Acts. The enquiry will also ensure that "control of credit is exercised in the national interest and not in the interest of powerful financial groups" by making creditors shift entirely to cheques, and possibly by getting rid of gold reserves.

1931 ILP Scottish Conference

It was becoming clearer that the ILP was diverging further away from the Labour Party and at the 1931 ILP Scottish Conference the issue of whether the party should still affiliate to Labour was discussed. It was decided to continue to do so, but only after Maxton himself intervened in the debate to speak up to continue to do so.

From disaffiliation to the Second World War

At the 1931 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1931

The United Kingdom general election on Tuesday 27 October 1931 was the last in the United Kingdom not held on a Thursday. It was also the last election, and the only one under universal suffrage, where one party received an absolute majority of the votes cast.The 1931 general election was the...

the ILP candidates refused to accept the standing orders of the parliamentary Labour Party, resulting in them standing without official Labour Party support. Five ILP members were returned to Westminster and created an ILP group outside the Labour Party. In 1932 the ILP held a special conference and voted to disaffiliate from Labour. The same year, it co-founded the "London Bureau" of left-socialist parties (later called the International Revolutionary Marxist Centre

International Revolutionary Marxist Centre

The International Revolutionary Marxist Centre was an international association of left-socialist parties. The member-parties rejected both mainstream social democracy and the Third International.-Organizational history:...

).

The Labour left-winger Aneurin Bevan

Aneurin Bevan

Aneurin "Nye" Bevan was a British Labour Party politician who was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1959 until his death in 1960. The son of a coal miner, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people...

described the ILP's disaffiliation as a decision to remain "pure, but impotent", and in the long run his criticism was arguably vindicated, as once outside of the Labour Party structure the ILP's political influence went into decline. Some members of the ILP who chose to remain within the Labour Party were to be instrumental in creating the Socialist League

Socialist League (UK, 1932)

The Socialist League was a socialist organisation in the United Kingdom.It formed in the 1932 as a split from the Independent Labour Party, opposed to that organisation disaffiliating from the Labour Party. It was led by Stafford Cripps. The League argued for drastic action to be taken by a future...

.

Disaffiliation proved to have a devastating impact on the size of the ILP's ranks. In just three years, the organisation lost 75% of its members. ILP membership, which had stood at 16,773 in 1932, plummeted to just 4,392 in 1935. The organisation lost adherents to the Labour Party on the right as well as to the Communist Party

Communist Party of Great Britain

and to the Trotskyists to the left. In 1934 a further loss was incurred when breakaway in the north west left to form the Independent Socialist Party

Independent Socialist Party (UK)

The Independent Socialist Party was a political party in the UK. It was formed in 1934 as a breakway from the Independent Labour Party in protest at the increasing power of the Revolutionary Policy Committee within the ILP....

.

The remaining party membership tended to be young and radical. They were particularly active in supporting the Republican

Second Spanish Republic

The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....

side in the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

, and around twenty-five members and sympathisers (including George Orwell

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

) went to Spain to assist the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM

Poum

Poum is a commune in the North Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The town of Poum is located in the far northwest, located on the southern part of Banare Bay, with Mouac Island just offshore....

) as part of an ILP Contingent

ILP Contingent

The British Independent Labour Party sent a small contingent to fight in the Spanish Civil War. The contingent fought with the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification and included George Orwell, who subsequently wrote about his experiences in his widely-read account Homage to Catalonia.-Contingent...

of volunteers. (The POUM was the ILP's sister party in the "Three-and-a-Half International" of democratic socialist parties, which the ILP administered and Fenner Brockway chaired for most if its existence in the 1930s.)

From the mid-1930s onwards the ILP also attracted the attention of the Trotskyist movement with various Trotskyist groups working within it, such as the Marxist Group

Marxist Group (UK)

The Marxist Group was an early Trotskyist group in the United Kingdom.Its origins lay in the Communist League, the first Trotskyist group in the country. Trotsky advised the group to enter the Independent Labour Party , which had just disaffiliated from the Labour Party...

of which CLR James, Denzil Dean Harber

Denzil Dean Harber

Denzil Dean Harber was an early British Trotskyist leader and later in his life a prominent British ornithologist.Denzil Dean Harber was born at 25 Fairmile Avenue, Streatham on 25 January 1909...

and Ted Grant

Ted Grant

Edward "Ted" Grant , 9 July 1913 in Germiston, South Africa – 20 July 2006 in London) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain...

were members. This was in addition to the presence within the party of a group of members sympathetic to the CPGB, the Revolutionary Policy Committee

Revolutionary Policy Committee

The Revolutionary Policy Committee was a faction within the former political party Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom.The RPC was formed in 1931 by members of the Independent Labour Party who were especially unhappy with the gradualist policies of the Second Labour Government...

, who eventually left to join that party.

In 1939, the ILP wrote to the Labour Party requesting affiliation subject to a right to advocate its own policies where it had a "conscientious objection" to Labour policy. Labour refused to agree to this, stating that its conditions of affiliation could not be waived for the ILP.

World War II and beyond

As in 1914 the ILP opposed World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

on ethical grounds and turned to the left. One aspect of its leftist policies in this period was that it opposed the war-time truce between the major parties and actively contested Parliamentary elections. In one such by-election in Cardiff, this was with the result that Fenner Brockway, the ILP candidate, found himself opposed by a Conservative candidate for whom the local Communist Party actively campaigned.

The ILP still had some significant strength at the end of the war, but it went into crisis shortly afterward. At the 1945 general election it retained three MPs, all in Glasgow, although only one of them had a Labour opponent. Its conference rejected calls to reaffiliate to the Labour Party. A major blow came in 1946 when the party's best known public spokesman, James Maxton

James Maxton

MP, died. The ILP narrowly held his seat in the Glasgow Bridgeton by-election, 1946

Glasgow Bridgeton by-election, 1946

The Glasgow Bridgeton by-election was held on 29 August 1946, following the death of Independent Labour Party Member of Parliament for Glasgow Bridgeton, James Maxton.The constituency had been held by Maxton since the 1922 UK general election...

(against a Labour opponent). However all their MPs defected to Labour at various stages in 1947, and the party was roundly defeated at the Glasgow Camlachie by-election, 1948

Glasgow Camlachie by-election, 1948

The Glasgow Camlachie by-election was held on 28 January 1948, following the death of Member of Parliament for Glasgow Camlachie Campbell Stephen....

, in a seat they had won easily only three years earlier. The party was never again able to take a significant vote in a Parliamentary election.

Despite these blows, the ILP continued and throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s pioneered opposition to the nuclear bomb and sought to publicise ideas such as workers' control. The small party also maintained links with the remnants of its fraternal groups, such as the POUM, who were in exile, as well as campaigning for de-colonisation.

In the 1970s the ILP reassessed its views on the Labour Party, and in 1975 they renamed themselves Independent Labour Publications

Independent Labour Publications

Independent Labour Publications is a left-wing pressure group inside the British Labour Party. It is the successor to the Independent Labour Party and is mostly known simply as "The ILP" in order to maintain that link with its predecessor organisation....

and became a pressure group inside the mainstream Labour Party.

List of chairs

1894-1900: Keir Hardie
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
1900-1903: J. Bruce Glasier
1903-1906: Philip Snowden
1906-1909: J. Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
1909-1910: F.W. Jowett
Frederick William Jowett
Frederick William 'Fred' Jowett was a British Labour politician.-Early life:Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, Jowett received little formal education and at the age of eight was working at the local textile mill...
1910-1913: W.C. Anderson
William Crawford Anderson
William Crawford Anderson was a British socialist politician.Born on 13 February 1877 at Findon, Aberdeenshire, the name Crawford in fact does not appear on his birth certificate. His father Francis Anderson was a blacksmith, who married in 1868, Barbara Cruickshank, an ardent radical; she being...
1913-1914: J. Keir Hardie
1914-1917: F.W. Jowett

1917-1920: Philip Snowden
1920-1923: Richard C. Wallhead
1923-1926: Clifford Allen
1926-1931: James Maxton
James Maxton
James Maxton was a Scottish socialist politician, and leader of the Independent Labour Party. A prominent proponent of Home Rule for Scotland, he is remembered as one of the leading figures of the Red Clydeside era.-Early years:...
1931-1934: Fenner Brockway
1934-1939: James Maxton
1939-1941: C.A. Smith
C. A. Smith
Charles A. Smith , known as C. A. Smith, was a British politician who held prominent positions in several minor parties.Born in Bishop Auckland, Smith studied at the University of Durham and the University of London, then trained as a school teacher, and later worked as a tutor for the Workers'...
1941-1943: John McGovern

1943-1948: Bob Edwards
Robert Edwards (politician)
Robert Edwards , usually known as Bob Edwards, was a British trade unionist and an Independent Labour Party and Labour Co-operative politician. He was a Member of Parliament from 1955 to 1987....
1948-1951: David Gibson
David Gibson (UK politician)
David Gibson was a Scottish socialist politician.Gibson joined the Independent Labour Party and at the 1935 UK general election was its candidate in Stirling East and Clackmannan. He was elected to Glasgow City Council, and he stood unsuccessfully in the Liverpool Edge Hill by-election, 1947.In...
1951-1953: Fred Barton
Fred Barton (politician)
Fred Barton was a British socialist politician.Barton joined the Independent Labour Party and was elected chairman of the Stretford Trades Council...
1953-1958: Annie Maxton
Annie Maxton
Annie Maxton was a Scottish socialist and trade unionist.Born in Glasgow, Maxton was convinced to join the Independent Labour Party by her elder brother, James Maxton. She trained as a teacher and became active in the Educational Institute of Scotland....
1958-1961: Fred Morel
1962-1971: Emrys Thomas
1971-1975: ???

Other notable members

Edward Aveling
Edward Aveling
Edward Bibbins Aveling was a prominent English biology instructor and popular spokesman for Darwinian evolution and atheism. He later met and moved in with Eleanor Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx and became a socialist activist...
George Nicoll Barnes
George Nicoll Barnes
George Nicoll Barnes CH PC was a Scottish politician and a leader of the Labour Party.Barnes was born in Lochee, Dundee, the second of five sons of James Barnes, a skilled engineer and mill manager from Yorkshire, and his wife, Catherine Adam Langlands...
Harry Barnes
John Beckett
George Buchanan
George Buchanan (politician)
George Buchanan was born in Glasgow, Scotland. A committed socialist, he joined the Independent Labour Party .Buchanan was vice-chairman of Glasgow Trades Council and sat on the city council from 1919 to 1923...
Joseph Burgess
Joseph Burgess
Joseph Burgess was a British journalist and Labour politician.He was born on 3 July 1853 in Failsworth, Lancashire, the third of six children of handloom weavers, and educated at a print works school in Failsworth. He started work in a card-cutting room at the age of six and worked as a cotton...
Emile Burns
John Burns
John Burns
John Elliot Burns was an English trade unionist and politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly associated with London politics. He was a socialist and then a Liberal Member of Parliament and Minister. He was anti-alcohol and a keen sportsman...
Charles Roden Buxton
Charles Roden Buxton
Charles Roden Buxton was an English philanthropist and politician.He was born in London, the third son of Sir Thomas Buxton, 3rd Baronet...
James Carmichael

Edward Carpenter
Edward Carpenter
Edward Carpenter was an English socialist poet, socialist philosopher, anthologist, and early gay activist....
Raymond "Ray" Challinor
Raymond Challinor
Raymond Challinor was a distinguished Marxist historian of the British labour movement, particularly in the North East of England...
Henry Hyde Champion
Henry Hyde Champion
Henry Hyde Champion was a socialist journalist and activist, regarded as one of the leading spirits behind the formation of the Independent Labour Party...
John S. Clarke
John Smith Clarke
John Smith Clarke was a British lion tamer, politician, poet, newspaper editor and art expert.-Early years:...
J.R. Clynes
Seymour Cocks
Seymour Cocks
Frederick Seymour Cocks, known as Seymour Cocks , was a British Labour Party Member of Parliament ....
R. Palme Dutt
Peter Fraser
Frederick Gould
Frederick Gould
Frederick Gould OBE was an English trade unionist and Labour Party politician who was Member of Parliament for Frome from 1923 to 1924 and from 1929 to 1931. He was also the father of Sir Ronald Gould, teacher and trade unionist.-Early life:Gould was born in Midsomer Norton. He came from a...
Victor Grayson
Victor Grayson
Albert Victor Grayson was an English socialist politician of the early 20th century. A Member of Parliament from 1907 to 1910, his sudden and still-unexplained disappearance in 1920 is widely believed to have been the result of his intention to reveal evidence of corruption at the highest levels...
Jim Griffiths
Jim Griffiths
James "Jim" Griffiths CH , was a Welsh Labour politician, trade union leader and the first ever Secretary of State for Wales.-Background and education:...
Paul Tony

Mary Agnes Hamilton
Mary Agnes Hamilton
Mary Agnes Hamilton was Member of Parliament for Blackburn from 1929 to 1931.In the early 1920s, she was the deputy editor of the New Leader.- External links :...
J.A. Hobson
John A. Hobson
John Atkinson Hobson , commonly known as John A. Hobson or J. A. Hobson, was an English economist and critic of imperialism, widely popular as a lecturer and writer.-Life:...
C.L.R. James
C. L. R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James , who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J.R. Johnson, was an Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts...
David Kirkwood
David Kirkwood
David Kirkwood, 1st Baron Kirkwood, PC was a socialist from the East End of Glasgow, Scotland, viewed as a leading figure of the Red Clydeside era.Kirkwood was educated at Parkhead Public School and was trained as an engineer....
Jim Larkin
James Larkin
James Larkin was an Irish trade union leader and socialist activist, born to Irish parents in Liverpool, England. He and his family later moved to a small cottage in Burren, southern County Down. Growing up in poverty, he received little formal education and began working in a variety of jobs...
Jennie Lee
France Littlewood
France Littlewood
France Littlewood was a British socialist activist.Born in Honley, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Littlewood studied at Almondbury Grammar School before working in his father's dye works. He joined the Liberal Party, which he represented on Honley Local Union, but left in 1891 to join the...
Andrew MacLaren
Andrew MacLaren
Andrew MacLaren was an Independent Labour Party politician. His passions were economic justice and art; he persistently campaigned for Land Value Taxation, and he was a painter. He represented Burslem for three separate terms during the 20th century.-History:Andrew MacLaren was born in a poor...
Neil Maclean
Cecil L'Estrange Malone
Cecil L'Estrange Malone
Cecil John L'Estrange Malone was Britain's first communist member of the House of Commons.-Early years:Born in Dalton Holme, Yorkshire on 7 September 1890, a rector's son, he joined the Royal Navy in 1905 and attended the Royal Naval College at Devonport. In 1912 he learned to fly and gained his...
James Shaw Maxwell
James Shaw Maxwell
James Shaw Maxwell , known as Shaw Maxwell, was a Scottish socialist activist.Born in Glasgow, Maxwell joined the Liberal Party and worked as a lithographer and journalist...
E. D. Morel
E. D. Morel
Edmund Dene Morel, originally Georges Eduard Pierre Achille Morel de Ville was a British journalist, author and socialist politician. In collaboration with Roger Casement, the Congo Reform Association and others, Morel, in newspapers such as his West African Mail, led a campaign against slavery...

John William Muir
John William Muir
John William Muir was the editor of The Worker who was prosecuted under the Defense of the Realm Act for an article criticising the war....
George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
Joseph Pointer
Joseph Pointer
Joseph Pointer was a British Labour Party Member of Parliament.Born in the Attercliffe district of Sheffield, Pointer became a convinced socialist early in his life, and joined the Independent Labour Party...
Shapurji Saklatvala
Shapurji Saklatvala
Shapurji Saklatvala was a British politician of Indian Parsi heritage. He was the third Indian Member of Parliament in the Parliament of the United Kingdom after fellow Parsis Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Bhownagree....
Alfred Salter
Alfred Salter
Dr Alfred Salter was a British medical practitioner and Labour Party politician.Southwark Council has offered £1000 reward for anyone who recovers the statue stolen on 18 November. -Early life:...
Harry Snell
Harry Snell, 1st Baron Snell
Henry Snell, 1st Baron Snell CH, PC , was a British socialist politician and campaigner. He served in government under Ramsay MacDonald and Winston Churchill, and as the Labour Party's leader in the House of Lords in the late 1930s.-Background:Born in Sutton-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, the son of...
Campbell Stephen
Campbell Stephen
Rev Campbell Stephen MA BD BSc was a Scottish socialist politician.A native of Bower parish, Caithness, he was educated at Townhead Public School, Allan Glen's School and Glasgow University....
R.H. Tawney
R. H. Tawney
Richard Henry Tawney was an English economic historian, social critic, Christian socialist, and an important proponent of adult education....
John Wilkinson Taylor
John Wilkinson Taylor (politician)
John Wilkinson Taylor was a British Labour Party politician.He was elected as Member of Parliament for Chester-le-Street at the 1906 general election, and held the seat until he resigned in 1919 due to ill-health....
Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood
Colonel Josiah Clement Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood, DSO, PC, DL sometimes referred to as Josiah Wedgwood IV was a British Liberal and Labour politician who served in government under Ramsay MacDonald...
John Wheatley
John Wheatley
John Wheatley was a Scottish socialist politician. He was a prominent figure of the Red Clydeside era.Wheatley was born in Bonmahon, County Waterford, Ireland, to Thomas and Johanna Wheatley. In 1876 the family moved to Braehead, Lanarkshire in Scotland...
Tom Chambers
Tom Chambers (trade unionist)
Tom Chambers was a British trade unionist. His son was Fielding Reginald West, Labour MP for Kensington and Hammersmith....

Conferences of the ILP

{| class="wikitable"

British Library of Political and Economic Science

The British Library of Political and Economic Science is the main library of theLondon School of Economics and Political Science, and the world's largest political and social sciences library .-Description:...

, http://library-2.lse.ac.uk/archives/handlists/ILP/ILP.html
|}

External links

Byers, Michael. ILP: Independent Labour Party. Published on Red Clydeside: a history of the labour movement in Glasgow, a project of the Glasgow Digital Library. Retrieved 4 October 2009.
Ryan, Mordecai. Britain’s Biggest Left Party, 1893-1945, and What Became of It: The history of the ILP. Published in Solidarity
Solidarity (newspaper)
Solidarity is a socialist newspaper published by the Alliance for Workers' Liberty .The paper was founded as a monthly in the mid-1990s, as Action for Health and Welfare, by the Welfare State Network , a campaign supported by the AWL, the International Socialist Group and others.The paper became...

, organ of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty
Alliance for Workers' Liberty
The Alliance for Workers' Liberty , also known as Workers' Liberty, is a Trotskyist group in Britain. The group has a complex history but has always been identified with the theorist Sean Matgamna...

Issue 3/85, 8 December 2005. Retrieved 4 October 2009.
Cox, Judy "Skinning a Live Tiger Paw by Paw: Reform, Revolution and Labour," International Socialism, Retrieved 4 October 2009.
Archives of the Independent Labour Party are held at the Archives Division of the Library of the London School of Economics. An online catalogue of these papers is available.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Foundation

Early years

The party matures

The ILP and the Great War

The ILP and the Third International

The ILP and Labour Party government (1922-1931)

1928 policy conferences

1931 ILP Scottish Conference

From disaffiliation to the Second World War

World War II and beyond

List of chairs

Other notable members

Conferences of the ILP

Further reading

External links