Revisiting the Origins of the British Labour Party

• In Event: Preferences for Redistribution and Representation

Abstract

How the Labour party displaced the Liberals as the predominant political force on the British left has been the subject of controversy since its occurrence. We revisit this debate, positing that the electoral success of the Labour party in the interwar period required both universal male suffrage and union-led mobilization of voters. We develop this argument in two parts. First, we use ecological inference techniques to estimate the social bases of parties’ support between 1900 and 1935. For this, we create a unique dataset combining information on electoral outcomes, the social class, religious and occupational composition of constituencies, and information on the location and membership of trade unions affiliated to the Labour party. Second, we link information on constituency characteristics with data on the voting behavior of Liberal MPs in Westminster to explain the decision of key trade unions to shift their support from the Liberal party to Labour in the 1900s. Our study not only advances our understanding of British political development, but also enhances our understanding of the forces underlying party system stability and change in general.

Authors

• Chitralekha Basu, University of Barcelona

• Carles Boix, Princeton University

• Jordi Munoz, University of Barcelona

• Sonia Gabriela Giurumescu, University of Barcelona