The First Attempt of the Labor Party to Govern Great Britain

William Thomas Morgan

doi:10.1086/253642

The Socialist Movement in Great Britain and the United States

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1943919 ◽

1924 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 276-284 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bertram Benedict

Keyword(s):

Great Britain ◽

Prime Minister ◽

Labour Party ◽

The United States ◽

Annual Conference ◽

House Of Commons ◽

Labor Party ◽

British Labour ◽

General Elections ◽

Socialist Movement

There is little need to point out the growing strength of the British Labor party. At the recent general elections, it achieved approximately one-third of both the House of Commons and the popular vote; and the fact that at the preceding election it had rolled up twenty-two per cent of the House and thirty per cent of the ballots proves that its recent achievement was not merely occasional. Throughout Great Britain there is thoughtful consideration as to whether Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald will prove as able a prime minister as he proved a leader of His Majesty's Opposition.What may not be so widely appreciated is that the British Labor party is fundamentally, in fact no less than in theory, a socialist party. At its annual conference held in June, 1923, the following resolution was proposed:“This Conference … asserts that the supreme object of the Labour Party should be the supersession of Capitalism by the Socialist Commonwealth … ;” and with hundreds of delegates representing several million members, the resolution was passed unanimously. Indeed, as the chairman, Sidney Webb, remarked in putting the resolution to a vote, it was largely unnecessary, for everyone in Great Britain recognized that the British Labour party was a socialist movement.

Download Full-text

Labor Party in Portraits. Rec. ad op.: E. A. Susloparova. EARLY HISTORY OF THE LABOR PARTY OF THE GREAT BRITAIN IN PORTRAITS OF ITS ACTORS. M .: «MAX Press», 2019, 350 p.

Новая и новейшая история ◽

10.31857/s013038640006362-6 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 ◽

pp. 228-233

Author(s):

Galina Ostapenko

Keyword(s):

Great Britain ◽

Early History ◽

Labor Party ◽

History Of

Download Full-text

The Parliamentary Labor Party in Great Britain

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1951287 ◽

1950 ◽

Vol 44 (4) ◽

pp. 855-871

Author(s):

James Macgregor Burns

Keyword(s):

Great Britain ◽

The Political ◽

British Politics ◽

Political Scientist ◽

House Of Commons ◽

Labor Party ◽

The Past ◽

Members Of Parliament ◽

Formal Power ◽

Equal Power

Who rules Britain? For the political scientist hunting out the real core of power, the question is hard to answer. Students of British politics have variously concluded that the Cabinet, or Parliament, or the party in power, or the administrative class of civil servants, or the “Big Three” (or Four, or Five)—or some combination of these—actually held the reins of authority. Constitutionally, however, the question is an easy one. Formal power rests with a majority of the Members of Parliament. This majority can pass laws and raise money, can bring down governments and make new ones, can change the Constitution itself.Those who have ruled Britain in this sense during the past five years have been a few hundred Labor Members of the House of Commons, organized in the Parliamentary Labor Party. Constitutionally, this is the ruling group, every member of which has equal power. In fact, a small minority of Labor Members, grouped in or about the Cabinet, actually make the great decisions of state. At the same time, the large majority of Labor Members not only lack real power but even in their very name —Backbenchers—they appear as the symbols of impotence.

Download Full-text

Report on House of Lords Reform in Great Britain

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1947729 ◽

1933 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 243-249

Author(s):

W. A. Rudlin

Keyword(s):

Great Britain ◽

Labor Party ◽

House Of Lords ◽

The Commons ◽

The Right ◽

Strong Claim

The recommendations embodied in this report are not sufficiently unlike the Curzon proposals to have any strong claim to novelty. All the arguments against upper houses in general and the 1922 Resolutions in particular are equally applicable to these proposals. They differ from previous Tory reports mainly in their livelier apprehension of the implications of a Labor majority in the Commons. Since the Labor party first came within sight of power, every large Tory majority has produced its demand for reform of the House of Lords. “Reform from the Right” has hitherto been urged as the safeguard against “dangerous innovations,” a term which has widened in significance as the Labor party has increased in strength. The Cave proposals were content to save the constitution of the reformed House of Lords from further attack by the Commons and to render the Parliament Act immune from alterations without the consent of the Lords.

Download Full-text

Labor Parties in Japan

American Political Science Review ◽

10.2307/1945218 ◽

1929 ◽

Vol 23 (2) ◽

pp. 329-363 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kenneth Colegrove

Keyword(s):

Great Britain ◽

House Of Representatives ◽

Party System ◽

Agricultural Workers ◽

New Members ◽

New Parties ◽

Labor Party ◽

Minor Parties ◽

Economic Significance ◽

New Association

One of the results of the passage of the manhood suffrage law of 1925 in Japan has been the rise of proletarian parties and the election of eight of their candidates as members of the Diet. In the House of Representatives these new members find themselves in the company of half a dozen minor parties and a group of independents, alternately ignored and courted by the two major parties. Their appearance coincides with a time when liberal opinion in Japan favors the two-party rather than the multiple-party system. But the economic significance of the new parties has saved them from the aspersion of merely adding to the confusion of minor groups. Moreover, the failure of Japanese liberals to develop a great party of liberalism invites a new association to seize a vantage ground so long unoccupied.On the eve of the general election of 1928 the founders of the proletarian parties had reason to hope that careful strategy in the campaign would give the new parties a good start upon the same road that led the Labor party in Great Britain to the leadership of the parliamentary opposition and finally into office. The manhood suffrage act had increased the electorate from 3,341,000 to 12,534,360. Among the nine million new voters are included practically all the male factory toilers and agricultural workers. Here, indeed, is a rich field for proletarian vote-getting.

Download Full-text