Labour Party (UK)

Labour Party
Governing body	National Executive Committee
Leader	Keir Starmer
Deputy Leader	Angela Rayner
Chair	Ellie Reeves
General Secretary	Hollie Ridley
Lords Leader	The Baroness Smith of Basildon
Founded	27 February 1900; 124 years ago (1900-02-27)[1][2] (as the Labour Representation Committee)
Headquarters	Labour Party Headquarters 20 Rushworth Street, London SE1 0SS[3] Labour Central, Kings Manor, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6PA[4]
Student wing	Labour Students
Youth wing	Young Labour
Women's wing	Labour Women's Network
LGBT wing	LGBT+ Labour
Membership (March 2024)	366,604[5]
Ideology	Social democracy
Political position	Centre-left[11]
European affiliation	Party of European Socialists
International affiliation	Progressive Alliance Socialist International (observer)
Affiliate party	Co-operative Party (Labour and Co-operative) Former affiliates: Independent Labour Party (1906–1932) British Socialist Party (1916–1920) National Socialist Party (1918–1939/1942)
Other affiliations	Social Democratic and Labour Party (Northern Ireland)
Colours	Red
Slogan	Change Begins (2024)[12][13]
Anthem	"The Red Flag"
Devolved or semi-autonomous branches	London Labour Scottish Labour Welsh Labour Labour Party in Northern Ireland
Parliamentary party	Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)
House of Commons	402 / 650
House of Lords	185 / 801
Scottish Parliament	22 / 129
Senedd	30 / 60
Regional mayors[nb]	11 / 12
London Assembly	11 / 25
PCCs and PFCCs	17 / 37
Directly elected mayors	10 / 16
Councillors[nb][14]	6,474 / 18,740
Councils Led	155 / 371
Election symbol
Website
labour.org.uk
Politics of the United Kingdom Political parties Elections ^ Mayor of London and 11 combined authority mayors. ^ Councillors of local authorities in England (including 25 aldermen of the City of London) and Scotland, principal councils in Wales and local councils in Northern Ireland.

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The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum.^[15][16][17] The party has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists.^[18] It is one of two dominant political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party. The party has been led by Keir Starmer since 2020, who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in July 2024. Since the 2024 general election, the Labour Party has been the governing party of the United Kingdom and the largest political party in the House of Commons, followed by the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats. As of 2024, there have been seven Labour prime ministers and fourteen Labour ministries. The party traditionally holds the annual Labour Party Conference during party conference season, at which debates and voting take place, and senior Labour figures promote party policy.

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 the 1931 election, 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 the 1945 election. Clement Attlee's government 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 1992, Tony Blair took the party to the political centre as part of his New Labour project, which governed under Blair and then Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010. After further electoral defeats in the 2010s, Keir Starmer again moved Labour to the political centre from 2020 and has governed since 2024.

Labour is the largest party in the Senedd (Welsh Parliament), being the only party in the current Welsh government. Labour is a member of the Party of European Socialists and the Progressive Alliance, and holds observer status in the Socialist International. The party includes semi-autonomous London, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish branches; it supports the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in Northern Ireland, while still organising there. As of March 2024^[update], Labour has 366,604 registered members.