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The Labour Party is a social democratic political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as being an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists, and trade unionists.[14] The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. It is the incumbent governing party of the United Kingdom, having won the 2024 general election, and is currently the largest UK political party by the number of votes cast and number of seats in the House of Commons. In all general elections since 1922, Labour has been either a governing party or the Official Opposition. There have been seven Labour prime ministers and fourteen Labour ministries. The party traditionally holds the annual Labour Party Conference during party conference season.
The party was founded in 1900, having grown out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the 19th century, and formed an alliance with the Co-operative Party in 1927. It overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming two minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in the 1920s and early 1930s. Labour served in the wartime coalition of 1940–1945, after which Clement Attlee's Labour government established the National Health Service and expanded the welfare state from 1945 to 1951. Under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, Labour again governed from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1979. In the 1990s, Tony Blair took Labour to the centre as part of his New Labour project which governed under Blair and then Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2010. Keir Starmer took Labour to the centre again and has governed since 2024.
Labour is the largest party in the Senedd (Welsh Parliament), being the only party in the current Welsh government. The party won most Scottish seats in the 2024 United Kingdom general election. Labour is a member of the Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, and holds observer status in the Socialist International. The party includes semi-autonomous London, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish branches; however, 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.
A crushing election defeat for Britain's Labour party has laid bare the dilemma facing Europe's centre-left.
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