Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party, commonly Labour, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party. It sits on the centre-left of the left–right political spectrum, and has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. It has been the governing party since the 2024 general election. Keir Starmer has been Leader of the Labour Party since 2020 and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 2024. There have been twelve Labour governments and seven Labour prime ministers. The party meets annually during Autumn for the Labour Party Conference, during which delegates from local parties and trade unions vote on party policy, and senior figures address the audience from the Conference platform.

The Labour Party was founded in 1900, having emerged from the trade union movement and socialist parties of the 19th century. It was electorally weak before the First World War, but in the early 1920s overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party, and briefly formed a minority government under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924. In 1929 Labour for the first time became the largest party in the House of Commons, with 287 seats, but fell short of a majority, forming another minority government. In 1931, in response to the Great Depression, MacDonald formed a new government with Conservative and Liberal support, which led to his expulsion from the party. Labour was soundly defeated by his coalition in 1931, winning only 52 seats, but began to recover in 1935 with 154 seats.

During the Second World War, Labour served in the wartime coalition, after which it won a majority in 1945. The government of Clement Attlee enacted extensive nationalisation and established the modern welfare state and National Health Service before losing power in 1951. Under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, Labour again governed from 1964 to 1970 and from 1974 to 1979. The party then entered a period of intense internal division which ended in the defeat of its left wing by the mid-1980s. After electoral defeats to the Conservatives in 1987 and in 1992, Tony Blair took the party to the political centre as part of the New Labour rebranding of the party, and it governed under Blair from 1997 to 2007 and Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010. After further electoral defeats in the 2010s, Starmer moved Labour closer to the political centre after becoming its leader in 2020, winning a landslide victory in the 2024 general election.

The party includes semi-autonomous London, Manx, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish branches. Labour is the largest party in the Senedd (Welsh Parliament), and the only party in the current Welsh government.