Policy and structure

Since its founding, the Labour Party has maintained a federal structure, operating in England, Scotland, and Wales. Within this structure the party accords rights of representation to its members through various affiliated organizations. These organizations include the constituency Labour parties (CLPs), which are responsible for recruiting and organizing members in each of the country’s parliamentary constituencies; affiliated trade unions, which traditionally have had an important role in party affairs; the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), comprising Labour members of Parliament; and a variety of small socialist groups such as the Fabian Society. Delegates from these organizations meet in an annual conference, where they are given formal authority in policy-making matters. The Labour Party’s various ancillary bodies (such as the women’s and youth sections) are also entitled to representation at the annual conference, and a number of individuals attend in ex officio capacity—including members of Parliament and parliamentary candidates. One of the principal functions of the annual conference is to elect the National Executive Committee (NEC), which oversees the party’s day-to-day affairs. Twelve members of the NEC are elected by trade union delegates, seven by CLPs, five by women delegates, one by youth delegates, and one by delegates from affiliated socialist societies.

Notwithstanding the formal sovereignty of the annual conference, policy making in the Labour Party historically has been dominated by coalitions of parliamentary elites and major trade union leaders. On occasion, however, this moderate establishment has lost ground to radical trade unionists and activists from the CLPs. As a result, since 1987 the parliamentary leadership has attempted to reassert its authority through a series of organizational reforms approved and supported by moderate trade union leaders. In the electoral college that selects the party leader, for example, the proportion of votes controlled by the unions was reduced from 40 percent to one-third; the other two-thirds were divided equally between the PLP and the CLPs. Trade unions also used to control 40 percent of the vote in the local electoral colleges that selected candidates for Parliament, but since 1987 those candidates have been chosen by a simple ballot of local party members. In the annual conference the proportion of delegates controlled by the unions, at one time more than 90 percent, was reduced to a maximum of 50 percent.

Another product of structural reform is the National Policy Forum, a body that effectively decreases the influence of the annual conference and reduces the voice of grassroots activists. The forum is divided into a number of smaller policy commissions, which are made up of appointed members and coordinated by a Cabinet minister (or, when the party is in opposition, by a shadow minister). The function of each commission is to produce policy reports for inspection by the forum and the NEC and for approval by the annual conference. Policy reports must be approved or rejected as a block, and affiliated organizations may not propose policy resolutions while issues are being deliberated by a commission.

Prior to World War II, Labour’s electoral support was based largely on blue-collar workers and middle-class socialists. Since the 1960s, sections of the middle class who worked in the public sector joined the coalition. After 1979 the Labour vote became heavily regionalized and concentrated in industrial areas of Scotland, South Wales, and northern England, though the renovation of the party leading up to the electoral victory of 1997 succeeded in restoring significant support in urban areas across southern England. Approximately two-thirds of Labour’s vote still comes from blue-collar workers, though they account for only about one-third of the party’s membership. Individual membership, which stood at about 350,000 at the end of the 1990s, has declined since 1960, though there was an upsurge during Blair’s first years as party leader.

For financial support, the party has relied heavily on its trade union affiliates throughout its history. Since the early 1990s, attempts have been made to reduce this dependence, though the degree of change has not been significant. About half of the Labour Party’s income is derived from union sources; the remainder comes from individual members, a variety of wealthy donors, and modest returns on investments. Although union members already were able to opt out of automatic political financial contributions that were going primarily to the Labour Party, in July 2013 party leader Ed Miliband proposed that those contributions become nonautomatic, or a matter of opting in. The party’s increasingly close ties to British corporations under Blair’s leadership provoked anger from the trade unions, some of which took steps to end their association with the party, including beginning talks in 2002 with the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.