Trade unionists and the Labour Party in Britain: the bedrock of success

• Main Author: Chris Wrigley
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre de Recherche et d'Etudes en Civilisation Britannique 2009-07-01
• Series: Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1138

The trade union-Labour Party link has been contentious with the pre-1914 socialists and the post-1994 New Labour Blairites as well as with Labour’s political opponents, the Conservative and Liberal parties. Yet, for the Labour Party the trade unions have provided support in hard times, as in the face of National Labour in the 1930s and the break-away of the Social Democrat Party (SDP) in the 1980s. In 1945-51, the support of the trade union movement to what it saw as “its” government in the massive task of reconstruction exemplified the close Labour Party–trade union relationship. But in the “winter of discontent” of early 1979 the trade unions and strikes became a major liability for the Labour Party. The relationship seems to have deteriorated since then; however, nationally and locally, the trade unions have provided both finance and activists which have been a bedrock of support for the Labour Party.