115-463: The Merthyr Pioneer was a weekly Socialist newspaper founded by Keir Hardie that was published in Merthyr Tydfil , Wales, from 1911 to 1922. The newspaper was a successful local paper, and also served as a vehicle for communicating Hardie's political opinions. The weekly Merthyr Pioneer was launched by Keir Hardie in 1911 with Thomas Evan Nicholas (Niclas y Glais) as its Welsh editor. Nicholas
230-589: A Welsh parliament . He was against the monarchy , brewers and militarism . The paper was strongly biased in favour of the Welsh language . Hardie argued strongly in the paper for a decentralised, devolved type of socialism based on local communities as opposed to the centralised German system. In April 1914 Hardie wrote in the Pioneer of establishing a union or commonwealth of the English-speaking nations. Although Hardie
345-550: A deerstalker hat. Although the deerstalker was the correct and matching apparel for his suit, he was nevertheless lambasted in the press, and was accused of wearing a flat cap , headgear associated with the common working man; a "cloth cap in Parliament". In Parliament, Hardie advocated a graduated income tax, free schooling, pensions, the abolition of the House of Lords and for women's right to vote. In 1893, Hardie and others formed
460-517: A "typical British city", confident that class politics could surmount sectarian division over the constitutional question. In 1906, the LRC changed its name to the "Labour Party". That year, the newly established Liberal government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman called a General Election — resulting in a heavy defeat for the Conservative Party (then in opposition), and the landslide affirmation of
575-544: A Labour government took office it should hold an enquiry into the banking system that would prepare a detailed scheme for transferring the Bank of England to public control, revise the operation of the Bank Acts and ensure that "control of credit is exercised in the national interest and not in the interest of powerful financial groups" by making creditors shift entirely to cheques and possibly getting rid of gold reserves , thus ending
690-585: A National Conference of miners at Dunfermline , at which he was selected as National Secretary, a high-sounding title which preceded the establishment of a coherent national organisation by several years. Hardie was active in the strike wave which swept the region in 1880, including a generalised strike of the mines of Lanarkshire that summer which lasted six weeks. The fledgling union had no money but worked to gather foodstuffs for striking mine families, as Hardie and other union agents got local merchants to supply goods upon promise of future payment. A soup kitchen
805-896: A by-product the Bradford Labour Union , an organisation which sought to function politically independently of either major political party. This initiative was replicated by others in Colne Valley , Halifax , Huddersfield and Salford. Such developments showed that working-class support for separation from the Liberal Party was growing in strength. Further arguments for the formation of a new party were to be found in Robert Blatchford 's newspaper The Clarion , founded in 1891, and in Workman's Times , edited by Joseph Burgess . The latter collected some 3,500 names of those in favour of creating
920-531: A closer relationship with Sylvia Pankhurst . His secretary Margaret Symons Travers was the first woman to speak in the House of Commons when she tricked her way in on 13 October 1908. He also campaigned for self-rule for India and an end to segregation in South Africa. During a visit to the United States in 1909, his criticism of sectarianism among American radicals caused intensified debate regarding
1035-633: A four-page broadsheet published in Glasgow, and sent greetings to the conference which established a Communist Party of Great Britain , although they did not attend. In addition to cutting its ties with the Second International, the 1920 Annual Conference of the ILP directed its executive to contact the Swiss Socialist Party with a view to establishing an all-inclusive international which would join
1150-508: A hospital in Glasgow of pneumonia at noon on 26 September 1915, aged 59. His friend and fellow pacifist Thomas Evan Nicholas (Niclas y Glais) delivered the sermon at Hardie's memorial service at Aberdare, in his constituency. He was cremated in Maryhill, Glasgow. A memorial stone in his honour is at Cumnock Cemetery Cumnock , Ayrshire , Scotland. On 2 December 2006, a memorial bust of Hardie
1265-413: A long and dismal vista. In the same article he also opposed accusations that he was unpatriotic by claiming that his meetings encouraged young men to enlist while those of his Liberal opponents did the opposite: I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting; I know too well all there is at stake… If I can get the recruiting figures for Merthyr week by week, which I find
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#17330939726091380-588: A meeting of various trade unions and socialist groups; they agreed to form a Labour Representation Committee and so the Labour Party was born. Later that same year Hardie, representing Labour, was elected as the junior MP for the dual-member constituency of Merthyr Tydfil in the South Wales Valleys, which he would represent for the remainder of his life. Only one other Labour MP was elected that year ( Richard Bell for Derby ), but from these small beginnings
1495-617: A miners' union in Hamilton and organised a National Conference of Miners in Dunfermline . He subsequently led miners' strikes in Lanarkshire (1880) and Ayrshire (1881). He turned to journalism to make ends meet, and from 1886 was a full-time union organiser as secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Union . Hardie initially supported William Gladstone 's Liberal Party , but later concluded that
1610-576: A national voice of the labour movement. At a TUC meeting in September 1892, a call was issued for a meeting of advocates of an independent labour organisation. An arrangements committee was established and a conference called for the following January. This conference was chaired by William Henry Drew and was held in Bradford during 14–16 January 1893 at the Bradford Labour Institute, operated by
1725-409: A new society." While this inspirational presentation of socialism as a humanitarian necessity made the party accessible as a sort of secular religion or a means for the practical implementation of Christian principles in daily life, it bore with it the great weakness of being non-analytical and thus comparatively shallow. It also offered a political home for some of the women's franchise movement in
1840-528: A number of other European socialist groups into the " Second and a Half International " between 1921 and 1923. The party was a member of the Labour and Socialist International between 1923 and 1933. At the 1922 general election several ILP members became MPs (including future ILP leader James Maxton ) and the party grew in stature. The ILP provided many of the new Labour MPs, including John Wheatley , Emanuel Shinwell , Tom Johnston and David Kirkwood . However,
1955-542: A pacifist general strike. Hardie is seen as a key figure in the history of the Labour Party and has been the subject of multiple biographies. Kenneth O. Morgan has called him "Labour's greatest pioneer and its greatest hero". James Keir Hardie was born on 15 August 1856 in a two-roomed cottage on the western edge of Newhouse , Lanarkshire near Holytown , a small town close to Motherwell in Scotland. His mother, Mary Keir,
2070-757: A party of labour independent from the existing political organisations. At the 1892 general election , held in July, three working men were elected without support from the Liberals: Keir Hardie in West Ham South , John Burns in Battersea , and Havelock Wilson in Middlesbrough , the last of whom actually faced Liberal opposition. Hardie owed nothing to the Liberal Party for his election, and his critical and confrontational style in Parliament caused him to emerge as
2185-504: A series of course on Industrial History based on Marxist economics that were the basis of a series in the Pioneer and were reprinted as A Worker Looks at History by the Plebs' League in November 1917. The paper was successful as a local newspaper, while also advancing political ideas. It ceased publication in 1922. Hardie was in favour of socialism , equality , public ownership of land, and
2300-458: A small group of like-minded radical pacifists, maintained an unflinching opposition to the government and its pro-war Labour allies. The 1917 Russian Revolution Conference in Leeds called for "the complete independence of Ireland , India and Egypt ". During the war the ILP's criticism of militarism was somewhat muted by public condemnation and periodic episodes of physical violence, which included
2415-464: A straight fight with the Conservatives. The electoral debacle of 1895 marked an end to the unbridled optimism which had attended the party's foundation. From its beginning, the ILP was never a homogeneous unit, but rather attempted to act as a " big tent " party of the working class, advocating a rather vague and amorphous socialist agenda. Historian Robert E. Dowse has observed: "From the beginning
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#17330939726092530-425: A superior creation. [Cries of 'Oh, oh!’] A line will be drawn between him and the people whom he is to be called upon some day to reign over. In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morganatic alliance will follow—[Loud cries of 'Oh, oh!’ and 'Order!’]—and the end of it all will be that the country will be called upon to pay
2645-644: A total immigration ban. When it was pointed out to him that more people left Scotland than entered it, he replied, "It would be much better for Scotland if those 1,500 were compelled to remain there and let the foreigners be kept out... Dr Johnson said God made Scotland for Scotchmen, and I would keep it so." According to Hardie, the Lithuanian migrant workers in the mining industry had "filthy habits", they lived off "garlic and oil", and they were carriers of "the Black Death". In 1908, when visiting South Africa, he said
2760-412: A trade unionist was likely to demand. Fervent and emotional, the socialism of the ILP could accommodate, with only a little strain, temperance reform, Scottish nationalism , Methodism , Marxism , Fabian gradualism , and even a variety of Burkean conservatism . Although the mixture was a curious one, it did have the one overwhelming virtue of excluding nobody on dogmatic grounds, a circumstance, on
2875-556: A very difficult job, I hope by another week to be able to prove that whereas our Rink meeting gave a stimulus to recruiting, those meetings at the Drill Hall at which the Liberal member or the Liberal candidate spoke, had the exactly opposite effect. Judging by their speeches, they seem far more concerned about defeating me than about defeating the Kaiser. After a series of strokes , Hardie died in
2990-455: A wild scene on 6 July 1918, during which an agitated group of discharged soldiers rushed an ILP meeting being addressed by Ramsay MacDonald in the Abbey Wood section of London. Stewards at the door of the ILP meeting were overpowered by the mob, who in what was described as a "riotous scene" broke chairs and wielded their parts as weapons, seizing the auditorium and dispersing the socialists into
3105-405: A year. In August 1881, Ayrshire miners put forward the demand for a 10 per cent increase in wages, a proposition summarily refused by the region's mine owners. Despite the lack of funds for strike pay, a stoppage was called and a 10-week shutdown of the region's mines ensued. This strike also was formally a failure, with miners returning to work before their demands had been met, but not long after
3220-513: Is necessary as a stage in the development of the ideal." Despite his early support of the Liberal Party, Hardie became disillusioned by William Ewart Gladstone 's economic policies and began to feel that the Liberals would not advocate the interests of the working class . Hardie concluded that the Liberal Party wanted the worker's votes without in return the radical reform he believed to be crucial – he stood for Parliament. In April 1888, Hardie
3335-446: The 1895 general election . With the NAC taking a lead in organising the party's contests , and with finance tight just 28 candidates ran under the ILP banner. A special conference decided that support could be given to either ILP or SDF candidates, which brought a further four contests into the picture. None was elected, however, with even the popular party leader Keir Hardie going to defeat in
3450-563: The American Socialist Party possibly joining with the unions in a labour party. A pacifist , Hardie was appalled by the First World War and along with socialists in other countries he tried to organise an international general strike to stop the war. His stance was not popular, even within the Labour Party, but he continued to address anti-war demonstrations across the country and to support conscientious objectors . After
3565-806: The British Socialist Party , the Socialist Labour Party , and radical groups in Wales and Scotland . "The emancipation of the British working class and of the working class of the whole world depends upon the Communist elements of England forming a single Communist Party", the ECCI declared. The agitation for affiliation to the Third International of Moscow came to a head in 1921 at the annual conference of
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3680-516: The Conservative Party candidate, Hardie won by 5,268 votes to 4,036. He was variously described as the Labour or " Liberal and Labour " candidate. Upon taking his seat on 3 August 1892, Hardie refused to wear the "parliamentary uniform" of black frock coat , black silk top hat and starched wing collar that other working-class MPs wore. Instead, Hardie wore a plain tweed suit, a red tie and
3795-616: The Independent Labour Party , an action that worried the Liberals, who were afraid that the ILP might, at some point in the future, win the working-class votes that they traditionally received. Hardie hit the headlines in 1894, when after an explosion at the Albion colliery in Cilfynydd near Pontypridd which killed 251 miners, he asked that a message of condolence to the relatives of the victims be added to an address of congratulations on
3910-589: The Labour Church . It proved to be the foundation conference of the Independent Labour Party, and MP Keir Hardie was elected as its first chairman. About 130 delegates were in attendance at the conference, including, in addition to Hardie, such socialist and labour worthies as Alderman Ben Tillett , author George Bernard Shaw , and Edward Aveling , partner of Karl Marx 's daughter Eleanor and translator of his Das Kapital . Some 91 local branches of
4025-420: The Labour Party was formed in 1906, the ILP immediately affiliated to it. This affiliation allowed the ILP to continue to hold its own conferences and devise its own policies, which ILP members were expected to argue for within the Labour Party. In return, the ILP provided a good part of Labour's activist base during its early years. The emergence and growth of the Labour Party, a federation of trade unions with
4140-527: The Lanarkshire coalfield. Working with SDF members such as Henry Hyde Champion and Tom Mann he was instrumental in the foundation of the Scottish Labour Party in 1888. In 1890, the United States imposed a tariff on foreign cloth; this led to a general cut in wages throughout the British textile industry. There followed a strike in Bradford , the Manningham Mills strike, which produced as
4255-524: The Liberal Party as the main vehicle for achieving this aim. As early as 1869, a Labour Representation League had been established to register and mobilise working-class voters on behalf of favoured Liberal candidates. Many trade unions themselves became concerned with gaining parliamentary representation to advance their legislative aims. From the 1870s a series of working-class candidates financially supported by trade unions were accepted and supported by
4370-457: The Liberals ' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie , became its first chairman. The party remained positioned to the left of Ramsay MacDonald 's Labour Representation Committee , which Hardie founded in 1900 and was soon renamed the Labour Party , and to which the ILP was affiliated from 1906 to 1932. In 1947,
4485-677: The dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet system to Great Britain, and its view on the necessity of armed force as a universal principle. In July 1920 the fledgling Comintern gave an unequivocal reply: while the presence of communists inside the organisation was acknowledged, and their membership in a new Communist Party welcomed, there would be no joint organisation with those like "the Fabians, Ramsay MacDonald , and Snowden " who had previously made use of "the musty atmosphere of parliamentary work" and "petty concessions and compromises" on behalf of
4600-455: The first Labour government , returned to office in 1924, proved to be hugely disappointing to the ILP. This came despite 30% of the cabinet holding ILP membership; of the most prominent of these figures, Ramsay MacDonald was removed as editor of the ILP's Socialist Review in 1925, and Philip Snowden resigned from the ILP in 1927. The ILP's response to the first Labour government was to devise its own programme for government. Throughout 1928,
4715-580: The internationalist left-wing socialist parties with their revolutionary socialist brethren of the new Moscow international. In a letter dated 21 May 1920, ILP chairman Richard Wallhead and National Council member Clifford Allen asked a further set of questions of the Comintern. The Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) was asked for its positions on such matters as demands for rigid adherence to its programme, applicability of
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4830-519: The 40 Labour MPs in Parliament lent their support to the recruiting campaign for the Great War . Only one section held aloof—the Independent Labour Party. The ILP's insistence on standing by its long-held ethically based objections to militarism and war proved costly both in terms of its standing in the eyes of the general public as well as its ability to hold sway over the politicians who ran under its banner. A stream of its old Members of Parliament left
4945-410: The ILP attempted to influence the trade unions to back a working-class political party: they sought, as Henry Pelling states: 'collaboration with trade unionists with the ultimate object of tapping trade union funds for the attainment of Parliamentary power.' The socialism of the ILP was ideal for achieving this end; lacking as it did any real theoretical basis it could accommodate practically anything
5060-450: The ILP developed a "Socialism in Our Time" platform, largely formulated by H. N. Brailsford , John A. Hobson and Frank Wise . The programme consisted of eight policies: Of these eight policies, the living wage, the unemployment allowance, nationalisation of banking and the bulk purchase of raw materials and foodstuffs were the chief concern of the ILP. The centerpiece of the ILP program
5175-550: The ILP formally disaffiliated from the International in the spring of 1920. In January 1919, Moscow issued a call for the formation of a new Third International , a formation which held great appeal to a small section of the ILP's most radical members, including economist Emile Burns , journalist R. Palme Dutt , and the future Member of Parliament Shapurji Saklatvala , along with Charles Barber, Ernest H. Brown, Helen Crawfurd , C. H. Norman, and J. Wilson. They called themselves
5290-519: The ILP had been secured in the wake of his disillusionment with the Liberal Party over its rejection of a trade unionist candidate in the 1894 Sheffield Attercliffe by-election . While there were substantial personal tensions between the four, they shared a fundamental view that the party should seek alliance with the unions and rather than an ideology-based socialist unity with the Marxist Social Democratic Federation . Following
5405-498: The ILP's leadership meant many converts to the Labour Party continued to join through the ILP, a process which continued until about 1925. On 11 April 1914 the party celebrated its 21st anniversary with a congress in Bradford. The party had grown well in the previous decade, standing with a membership of approximately 30,000. The rank and file membership of the party as well as its leadership were pacifist, now as ever, having held from
5520-446: The ILP. There an overwhelming vote of the party's branches voted not to affiliate with the Third International. This decision was followed by the exit of the defeated radical faction, which immediately joined the CPGB. The " centrism " of the ILP, caught between the reformist politics of the Second International and the revolutionary politics of the Third International, led it to leading
5635-548: The Independent Labour Party were represented, joined by 11 local Fabian Societies , four branches of the Social Democratic Federation , and individual representatives of a number of other socialist and labour groups. German Socialist leader Edward Bernstein was briefly permitted to address the gathering to pass along the best wishes for success from the Social Democratic Party of Germany . A proposal
5750-479: The Labour Party as being too timid and moderate in their attempts at social reform, detached as it was from the socialist objective during its first years. Consequently, in 1912 came a split in which many ILP branches and a few leading figures, including Leonard Hall and Russell Smart , chose to amalgamate with the SDF of H. M. Hyndman in 1912 to found the British Socialist Party . Until 1918, individuals could only join
5865-478: The Labour Party through an affiliated body, the most significant of which were the Fabian Society and the ILP. As a result, particularly from 1914, many individuals – particularly ones formerly active in the Liberal Party – joined the ILP, in order to become active in the Labour Party. While affiliated body membership was not required after 1918, the presence of MacDonald and other leading Labour Party figures in
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#17330939726095980-505: The Left Wing Group of the ILP. The conservative leadership of the ILP, notably Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden , strongly opposed affiliation to the new Comintern. In opposition to them the radical wing of the ILP organised itself as a formal faction called the Left Wing Group of the ILP in an effort to move the ILP into the Communist International. The faction began to produce its own bi-weekly newspaper called The International ,
6095-530: The Liberal Party. The federation of British unions, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), formed its own electoral committee in 1886 to further advance its electoral goals. Many socialist intellectuals, particularly those influenced by Christian socialism and similar notions of the ethical need for a restructuring of society, also saw the Liberals as the most obvious means for obtaining working-class representation. Within two years of its foundation in 1884,
6210-416: The Liberals. The 1906 general election result was one of the biggest landslide victories in British history: the Liberals swept the Conservatives (and their Liberal Unionist allies) out of what were regarded as safe seats . Conservative leader and former Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour , lost his seat, Manchester East , on a swing of over 20 per cent. What would later turn out to be even more significant
6325-665: The Patriot" in which he refuted attacks on Hardie's patriotism. Emrys Hughes , secretary of the No Conscription Fellowship in the Rhondda , covered military tribunals for the Merthyr Pioneer . He refused to accept conscription, was arrested in the spring of 1916 and imprisoned until 1919. Keir Hardie James Keir Hardie (15 August 1856 – 26 September 1915) was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He
6440-496: The Socialist movement stood for equal rights for every race but that "we do not say all races are equal; no one dreams of doing that". On return to the UK he stated his belief that black people should be given the opportunity to vote and to take a full part in society. After resigning the leadership of the party in 1908, Hardie devoted himself to campaigning for votes for women and developing
6555-623: The UK, the Liverpool branch appointing Alice Morrissey as the branch secretary (1907–08) and first female delegate to a regional Labour Representative Committee. As the movement for women's suffrage grew, the ILP had engaged with the non-militant suffragists, for example, Mary H. J. Henderson , Parliamentary Secretary for the Scottish Women's Suffrage Societies, chaired a joint meeting with ILP, with Ethel Snowden as key speaker in Dundee in 1914. As
6670-420: The abolition of the position of party "President" in 1896 testified to the power of such arguments. Nonetheless, the NAC came to possess considerable power over the party's activities, including hegemonistic control over crucial matters such as electoral decisions and relations with other parties. The electoral defeat of 1895 hastened the establishment of centralising and anti-democratic practices of this kind. In
6785-456: The age of ten years old, Hardie went to work in the mines as a "trapper": opening and closing a door for a ten-hour shift to maintain the air supply for miners in a given section. Hardie also began to attend night school in Holytown at this time. Hardie's stepfather returned from sea and went to work on a railway line being constructed between Edinburgh and Glasgow. When this job was completed,
6900-401: The basis of the existing property franchise. This, he saw, as potentially delaying the extension of "citizenship" to women on which he spoke passionately: I thought the days of my pioneering were over but of late I have felt, with increasing intensity, the injustice inflicted on women by our present laws. The Party is largely my own child and I cannot part from it lightly, or without pain; but at
7015-493: The beginning that war was "sinful". The guns of August 1914 shook every left organisation in Britain. As one observer later put it: "Hyndman and Cunningham Graham , Thorne and Clynes had sought peace while it endured, but now that war had come, well, Socialists and Trade Unionists, like other people had got to see it through." With respect to the Labour Party, most of the members of the organisation's executive as well as most of
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#17330939726097130-524: The bill. [Cries of Divide!] This speech was highly controversial and contributed to the loss of his seat in 1895. Hardie spent the next five years of his life building up the Labour movement and speaking at various public meetings; he was arrested at a woman's suffrage meeting in London, but the Home Secretary , concerned about arresting the leader of the ILP, ordered his release. In 1900 Hardie organised
7245-409: The birth of a royal heir (the future Edward VIII ). The request was refused and Hardie made a speech in the House of Commons attacking the monarchy , which almost predicted the nature of the future king's marriage that led to his abdication . From his childhood onward this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers by the score—[Cries of 'Oh, oh!’]—and will be taught to believe himself as of
7360-412: The boy, including work as an apprentice in a brass-fitting shop, work for a lithographer , employment in the shipyards heating rivets, and time spent as a message boy for a baker for which he earned four shillings and sixpence a week. A great lockout of the Clydeside shipworkers took place in which the unionised workers were sent home for six months. With their main source of income terminated,
7475-440: The concept of class struggle were nonetheless frustrated with the ideology and institutions of the Liberal Party and the secondary priority which it appeared to give to its working-class candidates. Out of these ideas and activities came a new generation of activists, including Keir Hardie , a Scot who had become convinced of the need for independent labour politics while working as a Gladstonian Liberal and trade union organiser in
7590-403: The failure of 1895, this leadership became reluctant to overextend the party by running in too many electoral races. By 1898 the decision was formally made to restrict electoral contests to those where a reasonable performance could be expected rather than putting forward as many candidates as possible to maximise exposure for the party and to accumulate a maximum total vote. The relationship with
7705-440: The family moved to the village of Quarter, Lanarkshire , where Hardie went to work as a pony driver at the mines, later working his way into the pits as a hewer . He also worked for two years above ground in the quarries . Around this time he encountered Thomas Carlyle 's Sartor Resartus , which he read until "the spirit of it somewhat entered into me". This was an early and enduring influence on his radicalism and pacifism. By
7820-534: The family was forced to sell all their possessions to pay for food, with Hardie's meagre earnings the only remaining source of income for the household. One sibling took ill and died in the miserable conditions which followed, while the pregnancy of his mother limited her ability to work. Making matters worse, young James lost his job for turning up late on two occasions. In desperation, his stepfather returned to work at sea, while his mother moved from Glasgow to Newarthill , where his maternal grandmother still lived. At
7935-507: The foundation conference was delivered by Keir Hardie, who observed that the Labour Party was "not an organisation but rather 'the expression of a great principle,' since it 'had neither programme nor constitution". Hardie emphasised the fundamental demand of the new organisation as being the achievement of economic freedom and called for a party structure which gave full autonomy to every locality, and only seeking to bind these groups "to such central and general principles as were indispensable to
8050-410: The gradualist Fabian Society officially committed itself to a policy of permeation of the Liberal Party. A number of so-called " Lib-Lab " candidates were subsequently elected Members of Parliament by this alliance of trade unions and radical intellectuals working within the Liberal Party. The idea of working with the middle-class Liberal Party to achieve working-class representation in parliament
8165-420: The historian John Callaghan has noted, in the hands of Hardie, Glasier, Snowden and MacDonald socialism was little more than "a vague protest against injustice." However, in 1909 the ILP laid the basis for the production of agitational material with the establishment of the National Labour Press . Still, the relationship between the ILP and the Labour Party was characterised by conflict. Many ILP members viewed
8280-548: The inevitability of pursuing it rather than stopping it immediately. In a full-page article in the Merthyr Pioneer on 28 November 1914, he wrote: May I once again revert for a moment to the ILP pamphlets? None of them clamour for immediately stopping the war. That would be foolish in the extreme, until, at least, the Germans have been driven back across their own frontier, a consummation which, I fear, carries us forward through
8395-473: The labour movement: [T]hese leaders have lost touch with the wide unskilled masses, with the toiling poor, they have become oblivious of the growth of capitalist exploitation and of the revolutionary aims of the proletariat. It seemed to them that because the capitalists treated them as equals, as partners in their transactions, the working class had secured equal rights with capital. Their own social standing secure and material position improved, they looked upon
8510-528: The last years of the 19th century, four figures emerged on the NAC who remained at the centre of the party shaping its direction for the next 20 years. In addition to the beloved party leader Keir Hardie came the Scot Bruce Glasier , elected to the NAC in 1897 and succeeding Hardie as Chairman in 1900; Philip Snowden , an evangelical socialist from the West Riding , and Ramsay MacDonald , whose adhesion to
8625-415: The left and at the time, which cannot be lightly dismissed." Of course in a party of loose and diverse opinions, the essential nature of the organisation and its programme would always remain a matter of debate. Initial decisions about party organisation were rooted in an idea of strict democracy. These arguments did have some impact, as the conference held to set policy prior to the 1895 general election and
8740-477: The living wage differed from Labour practices. The ILP criticised the "Continental" method of paying wage allowances from employers' pools, which had been implemented in 1924 by Rhys Davies . The ILP proposed to redistribute the national income, meeting the cost of the allowances by taxing high income earners. The nationalisation of banking involved more significant changes to economic policy, and had nothing in common with Labour practices. The ILP proposed that once
8855-402: The local mining industry. The 23-year-old Hardie moved from the coal mines to union organisation work. In May 1879, Scottish mine owners combined to force a reduction of wages, which had the effect of spurring the demand for unionisation. Huge meetings were held weekly at Hamilton as mine workers joined to vent their grievances. On 3 July 1879, Hardie was appointed Corresponding Secretary of
8970-602: The local newspaper, the Cumnock News, a paper loyal to the pro-labour Liberal Party , after which, Hardie joined the Liberal Association, in which he was active. He also continued his temperance work as an active member of the local Good Templar's Lodge . In August 1886, Hardie's ongoing efforts to build a powerful union of Scottish miners were rewarded when there was formed the Ayrshire Miners Union . Hardie
9085-476: The miners, a post which gave him opportunity to get in touch with other representatives of the mine workers throughout southern Scotland. Three weeks later, Hardie was chosen by the miners as their delegate to a National Conference of Miners to be held in Glasgow. He was appointed Miners' Agent in August 1879 and his new career as a trade union organiser and functionary was launched. On 16 October 1879, Hardie attended
9200-532: The night. Following the termination of World War I in November 1918, the Second International was effectively relaunched and the question of whether the ILP should affiliate with this renewed Second International or with some other international grouping loomed large. The majority of ILP members saw the old Second International as hopelessly compromised by its support for the European bloodbath of 1914, and
9315-521: The organisation's three parliamentary representatives defected to the Labour Party, and the organisation rejoined Labour as Independent Labour Publications in 1975. As the nineteenth century came to a close, working-class representation in political office became a great concern for many Britons. Many who sought the election of working men and their advocates to the Parliament of the United Kingdom saw
9430-487: The outbreak of war, on 4 August 1914, Hardie's spirited anti-war speeches often received opposition in the form of loud heckling. Hardie was among many Scottish socialists, the likes of John MacLean and Willie Gallacher , who opposed the War and believed that working-class men fighting other working-class men only served the interests of capitalism. Despite this, once the war had started Hardie seems to have resigned himself to
9545-539: The party continued to grow, forming the first-ever Labour government in 1924. Meanwhile, the Conservative and Liberal Unionist coalition government became deeply unpopular, and Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman was worried about possible vote-splitting across the Labour and Liberal parties in the next election. A deal was struck in 1903, which became known as the Lib-Lab pact of 1903 or Gladstone-MacDonald pact . It
9660-467: The party over the ILP's refusal to support the British war effort. Among those breaking ranks were George Nicoll Barnes , J. R. Clynes , James Parker , George Wardle and G. H. Roberts . Others held true to the party and its principles. Ramsay MacDonald, a committed pacifist, immediately resigned the chairmanship of the Labour Party in the House of Commons. Keir Hardie, Philip Snowden, W. C. Anderson , and
9775-491: The progress of the movement". The conference also established the basic organisational structure of the new party. Annual Conferences, composed of delegates from each local unit of the organisation, were declared the "supreme and governing authority of the party". A Secretary was to be elected, to serve under the direct control of a central body known as the National Administrative Committee (NAC). This NAC
9890-447: The purpose of obtaining the independent representation of labour". Despite the apparent timidity in naming the organisation, the inaugural conference overwhelmingly accepted that the object of the party should be "to secure the collective and communal ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange ". The party's programme called for a range of progressive social reforms, including free "unsectarian" education "right up to
10005-626: The return wages were escalated across the board by the mine owners, fearful of future labour actions. One of the other leaders of the strike was 19-year-old miner Andrew Fisher , who decades later would become leader of the Australian Labor Party and Prime Minister of Australia . He and Hardie met regularly to discuss politics when they both lived in Ayrshire and would renew their acquaintance on several occasions later in life. To make ends meet, Hardie turned to journalism, starting to write for
10120-507: The same time I cannot sever myself from the principles I hold. If it is necessary for me to separate myself from what has been my life's work, I do so in order to remove the stigma resting upon our wives, mothers and sisters of being accounted unfit for citizenship. The PLP defused the crisis by allowing Hardie to vote as he wished on the subject. The precedent became the basis of a "conscience clause" in its standing orders, and would be invoked by party leader Michael Foot in 1981 to argue that
10235-448: The same year he helped to form the union-based Labour Representation Committee, which was later renamed the Labour Party. After the 1906 election , Hardie was chosen as the Labour Party's first parliamentary leader. He resigned in 1908 in favour of Arthur Henderson , and spent his remaining years campaigning for causes such as women's suffrage, self-rule for India, and opposition to World War I. He died in 1915 while attempting to organise
10350-524: The shipyards rather than practising his trade at sea – never an easy proposition given the boom-and-bust cycle of the industry. Hardie's first job, when aged seven, was as a message boy for the Anchor Line Steamship Company . Formal schooling henceforth became impossible, but his parents spent evenings teaching him to read and write, skills which proved essential for future self-education . A series of low-paying entry-level jobs followed for
10465-541: The socialist intellectuals of the ILP, helped its constituent parts develop and grow. In contrast to the Orthodox Marxism of the SDF and its even more orthodox offshoots like the Socialist Labour Party and the Socialist Party of Great Britain , the ILP had a loose and inspirational flavour that made it relatively more easy to attract newcomers. Victor Grayson recalled a 1906 campaign in the Colne Valley which he
10580-651: The time he was twenty, he had become a skilled practical miner. "Keir", as he was now called, longed for a life outside the mines. To that end, encouraged by his mother, he learned to read and write in shorthand . He also began to associate with the Evangelical Union becoming a member of the Evangelical Union Church, Park Street, Hamilton – now the United Reformed Church, Hamilton (which also incorporates St James' Congregational Church, attended by
10695-495: The title Keir Hardie Street for his 2010 narrative long poem in which a fictitious, turn-of-the-century, working-class poet discovers a socialist utopia off the dreamt-up Sea-Green Line of the London Underground . Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party ( ILP ) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford , after local and national dissatisfaction with
10810-500: The trade unions was also problematic. In the 1890s the ILP was lacking in alliances with the trade union organisations. Individual rank and file trade unionists could be persuaded to join the party out of a political commitment shaped by their industrial experiences, but connection with top leaderships was lacking. The ILP played a central role in the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, and when
10925-446: The universities", the provision of medical treatment and school feeding programmes for children, housing reform, the establishment of public measures to reduce unemployment and provide aid to the unemployed, a minimum-wage law, welfare programmes for orphans, widows, the elderly, the disabled, and the sick, the abolition of child labour , the abolition of overtime and piecework , and an eight-hour workday . The keynote address of
11040-495: The will of the conference should not always bind the PLP. Hardie, never good at dealing with internal dissension, did resign his chairmanship of the party the following year, 1908. He was replaced by Arthur Henderson . Hardie in his evidence to the 1899 House of Commons Select Committee on emigration and immigration, argued that the Scots resented immigrants greatly and that they would want
11155-529: The working class needed its own party. He first stood for parliament in 1888 as an independent, and later that year helped form the Scottish Labour Party . Hardie won the English seat of West Ham South as an independent candidate in 1892, and helped to form the Independent Labour Party (ILP) the following year. He lost his seat in 1895, but was re-elected to Parliament in 1900 for Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. In
11270-498: The world through the rose-coloured spectacles of a peaceful middle-class life. Disturbed in their peaceful trading with the representatives of the bourgeoisie by the revolutionary strivings of the proletariat they were the convinced enemies of the revolutionary aims of the proletariat. The ECCI instead made its appeal directly to "the communists of the Independent Labour Party", noting that "the revolutionary forces of England are split up" and urging them to unite with communist members of
11385-561: The young David Livingstone , the future famous missionary explorer) – and to participate in the Temperance movement . Hardie's avocation of preaching put him before crowds of his fellows, helping him to learn the art of public speaking . Before long, Hardie was looked to by other miners as a logical chairman for their meetings and spokesman for their grievances. Mine owners began to see him as an agitator and in fairly short order, he and two younger brothers were blacklisted from working in
11500-571: Was Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham , the first socialist MP, and later founder of the National Party of Scotland , forerunner to the Scottish National Party . Hardie was invited to stand in West Ham South in 1892, a working-class seat in Essex (now Greater London ). The Liberals decided not to field a candidate, but at the same time not to offer Hardie any assistance. Competing against
11615-461: Was a domestic servant and his stepfather, David Hardie, was a ship's carpenter . Hardie had little or no contact with his biological father, a miner from Lanarkshire named William Aitken. The growing family soon moved to the shipbuilding burgh of Govan near Glasgow (which wasn't incorporated into the city until 1912), where they made a life in a very difficult financial situation, with his stepfather attempting to maintain continuous employment in
11730-517: Was a founder of the Labour Party , and was its first parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908. Hardie was born in Newhouse , Lanarkshire . He started working at the age of seven, and from the age of 10 worked in the Lanarkshire coal mines. With a background in preaching, he became known as a talented public speaker and was chosen as a spokesman for his fellow miners. In 1879, Hardie was elected leader of
11845-410: Was a socialist bard and an Independent minister. The paper was associated with the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and helped promote Hardie as ILP member of parliament for Merthyr Tydfil. Christopher Murray Grieve , better known as Hugh MacDiarmid, used to write for the paper. The suffragette leader Sylvia Pankhurst wrote a weekly article for the paper signed with the initial S . Mark Starr taught
11960-464: Was an Independent Labour candidate at the Mid Lanarkshire by-election . He finished last but he was not deterred by this, and believed he would enjoy more success in the future. At a public meeting in Glasgow on 25 August 1888 the Scottish Labour Party (a different party from the 1994-created Scottish Labour Party ) was founded, with Hardie becoming the party's first secretary. The party's president
12075-549: Was engineered by Ramsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone : the Liberals would not stand against Labour in thirty constituencies in the next election, in order to avoid splitting the anti- Conservative vote. In 1905 Hardie served as an LRC election agent for William Walker who came close to victory with 48.5% of the vote in Belfast North . Despite his own support for Irish home rule , Hardie, who made repeated visits, appeared determined to treat Belfast as
12190-497: Was in turn to be made up of regionally appointed delegates who were in theory confined to act according to the instructions given them by branch conferences. The new party was founded in a social environment of great hope and expectation. However, the first few years were difficult. The direction of the party, its leadership and organisation were heavily contested and the expected electoral progress did not emerge. The party did not fare well in its first major test of national support,
12305-465: Was kept running in Hardie's home during the strike, manned by his new wife, the former Lillie Wilson. While the Lanarkshire mine strike was a failure, Hardie's energy and activity shone and he accepted a call from Ayrshire to relocate there to organise the local miners. The young couple moved to the town of Cumnock , where Keir set to work organising a union of local miners, a process which occupied nearly
12420-427: Was made by a Scottish delegate, George Carson , to name the new organisation the "Socialist Labour Party", but this was defeated by a large margin by a counterproposal reaffirming the name "Independent Labour Party", moved by the logic that there were large numbers of workers not yet prepared to formally accept the doctrine of socialism who would nonetheless be willing to join and work for an organisation "established for
12535-496: Was named Organising Secretary of the new union, drawing a salary of £75 per year. In 1887, Hardie launched a new publication called The Miner . Hardie was a dedicated Georgist for a number of years and a member of the Scottish Land Restoration League . It was "through the single tax" on land monopoly that Hardie gradually became a Fabian socialist . He reasoned that "whatever the idea may be, State socialism
12650-468: Was not universally accepted, however. Marxist socialists, believing in the inevitability of class struggle between the working class and the capitalist class, rejected the idea of workers making common cause with the petty bourgeois Liberals in exchange for minor, palliative reform legislation. The British orthodox Marxists established their own party, the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), in 1881. Other socialist intellectuals, despite not sharing
12765-453: Was opposed to fighting in World War I (1914–18) he avoided criticising the volunteer soldiers. As he wrote in his weekly column of the Pioneer , "The lads who have gone forth by sea and land to fight their country's battles must not be disheartened by a discordant note at home." After Hardie's death in 1915 George Bernard Shaw wrote a tribute to him in the Merthyr Pioneer titled "Keir Hardie
12880-584: Was proud to have conducted "like a religious revival," without reference to specific political problems. Future party chairman Fenner Brockway later recounted the revivalist mood of the gatherings of his local ILP branch gathering in 1907: "On Sunday nights a meeting was conducted rather on the lines of the Labour Church Movement —we had a small voluntary orchestra, sang Labour songs and the speeches were mostly Socialist evangelism , emotion in denunciation of injustice, visionary in their anticipation of
12995-417: Was the "Living Wage" policy, which sought to impose high minimum wages across all industries and nationalize all private enterprises which could not afford to pay them in order to resolve interwar unemployment and poverty , which it held to be caused by underconsumption . Increasing the unemployment allowance and switching to bulk purchasing were to be done in the conventional way, but the method of paying
13110-582: Was the election of 29 Labour MPs. In January 1907 at the Labour Party's first annual conference, held in Belfast, Hardie helped raise the issue of whether sovereignty lay with the annual conference, as in the inherited tradition of trade union democracy, or with the PLP. In the closing session he shocked the delegates by threatening to resign from the PLP over an amendment to a resolution on equal suffrage for women that would have bound him as an MP to oppose any compromise legislation that would extend votes to women on
13225-612: Was unveiled by Cynon Valley MP Ann Clwyd outside council offices in Aberdare (in his former constituency). The ceremony marked a centenary since the party's birth. Hardie is still held in high esteem in his old home town of Holytown , where his childhood home is preserved for people to view, while the local sports centre was named in his own honour as "The Keir Hardie Sports Centre". Keir Hardie Memorial Primary School opened in 1956, named for him. There are now 40 streets throughout Britain named after Hardie. Alan Morrison has, in turn, used
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