The formation of the Labour Party: lessons for today

Jim Mortimer, Socialist History Society, 6 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, 36 pages, £2.50

This booklet celebrates the decision of the TUC approximately 100 years ago (1899) to form the Labour Representation Committee - the forerunner of the Labour Party - and sets out the sequence of events from Chartism onwards that led to this historic decision.

The author gives an excellent account of all the factors which led to the formation of the Labour Party, two of which stand out. First, the key role played by the trade union movement, and second the crucial part played by socialists such as Keir Hardie and their vision of a socialist society which would abolish the grotesque inequalities of capitalism, replacing production for profit by social ownership of the means of production.

An early example of the influence of the socialists was the commitment, made at the 1905 conference of the Labour Representation Committee, to public ownership. The Fabian Society also campaigned for the public ownership of a wide range of services, especially by municipal authorities. After the first world war this was put into the Labour Party's constitution by the famous clause 4.

The author concludes by saying that, though New Labour is not a socialist party, within its ranks there are thousands of socialists who need to act in the same manner as the socialists of 100 years ago and seek to extend their influence within the labour movement.