Party constitution and structure

Party ideology

The Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement and socialist political parties of the 19th century, and continues to describe itself as a party of democratic socialism. Labour was the first political party in Great Britain to stand for the representation of the low-paid working class and it has traditionally been the working class who are known as the Labour Party grassroots and traditional members and voters.

The Labour Party traditionally was in favour of socialist policies such as public ownership of key industries, government intervention in the economy, redistribution of wealth, increased rights for workers and trade unions, and a belief in the welfare state and publicly funded healthcare and education.

Since the mid-1980s, under the leadership of Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Tony Blair the party has moved away from its traditional socialist position towards what is often described as the "Third Way"

This has led many observers to describe the Labour Party as social democratic or even neo-liberal rather than democratic socialist.[3] Blair himself has described New Labour's political position as a "Third Way". Even though the majority of grass root members and Back Bench MPs still consider themselves socialist (Socialist Campaign Group). Also the current Labour governament have brought in socialsit policies such as introducing a minimum wage and increasing the spending on the NHS and education. Also the recent nationalising of Northern Rock has reminded many people of Old Labour

Labour Party Rule Book

The Labour Party is a membership organisation consisting of Constituency Labour Parties, affiliated trade unions, socialist societies, and the Co-operative Party, with which it has an electoral agreement. Members who are elected to parliamentary positions take part in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP). The party's decision-making bodies on a national level formally include the National Executive Committee (NEC), Labour Party Conference, and National Policy Forum (NPF) — although in practice the Parliamentary leadership has the final say on policy. Questions of internal party democracy have frequently provoked disputes in the party.

For many years, Labour has held to a policy of uniting Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland by consent, and had not allowed residents of Northern Ireland to apply for membership,[4] instead supporting the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) which takes the Labour whip at the House of Commons. Yet Labour has a unionist faction in its ranks, many of whom assisted in the foundation in 1995 of the UK Unionist Party lead by Robert McCartney. The 2003 Labour Party Conference accepted legal advice that the party could not continue to prohibit residents of the province joining,[5] but the National Executive has decided not to organise or contest elections there.

The party had 198,026 members on 31 December 2005 according to accounts filed with the Electoral Commission which was down on the previous year. In that year it had an income of about Ј35,000,000 (Ј3,685,000 from membership fees) and expenditure of about Ј50,000,000. Party electoral manifestos have not contained the term socialism since 1992, although when Clause 4 was abolished the words "the Labour Party is a democratic socialist party" were added to the party's constitution.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-17