2nd oldest political party
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Has the SPGB got it right about being the second oldest political party, from what I’m being led to believe the Labour Party started in 1900, 4 years before us.
So as far as you are concerned the labour party didn’t exist in 1900, it was a committee and not a party as such.
Throughout my whole life, I have seen and known several organizations that have collapsed, they have been bigger and larger than the Socialist Party. Some have had larger membership and large incidence within the working class and they do not exist anymore. The SP has been publishing a monthly Journal for several decades, others can not publish a newsletter ( like the SLP of America ) and some have had a daily newspaper like the CPCML and they can not do that anymore, others had the power to call for a general strike and workers and students responded to the call they can not do that anymore either, The Bolshevik party is gone despite having so many theoreticians. A good house with a good foundation can stand an earthquake and a hurricane
I think people are missing the point, the point is if we claim to be the second oldest political party in the UK, then we have to be able to back that claim up, otherwise we are no better than any other political party.
“Indeed, though the Party was formed in 1900 under the name “Labour Representation Committee” (changed to Labour Party in 1906) it was admitted by the Secretary of the Party in 1918, the late Arthur Henderson, that until that year they were not a political party at all: “they had never in the proper sense claimed to be a national political party” (Labour Party Conference Report 1918, p.99).”
Good point. I don’t think we have ever claimed to be the second oldest political party in Britain, only to have been formed before the Labour Party.
In other words, this thread seems to have started off on a false assumption. Or, Mullrae, have you evidence that we have made this claim?
“Good point. I don’t think we have ever claimed to be the second oldest political party in Britain, only to have been formed before the Labour Party.”
For example; in the ‘about’ description:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/779523775463252/You are right. It does say that on that Facebook page. It needs to be changed and will be if and when we can track down who manages that page.
It is not our main Faebook page which is here (with many more followrers — 4.6K as opposed to 929)
“For example; in the ‘about’ description:”
It’s wrong and should be changed. But whoever thought that was some kind of selling point anyhow!?
The thing about the Labour Representation Committee is that it was a committee of Labourist MPs. It became the Labour Party in 1906 but the only members were Labour MPs, which included ILP, Fabian Society Members, etc. Individuals could not join that Labour Party as such and the separate groups maintained completely independent organisational structures. In that sense it was similar to some electoral pacts that occur in other countries with some joining and leaving, or a bit like the groupings that occur in the European Parliament.
It was only in 1919 that the Labour Party effectively became the recognised political entity that is known today.
The whigs and Liberals had similar development into political parties and their is an argument that the Tories didn’t become the Conservative and Unionist Party only formed in the 1960s, as until that point the Conservative Party (England and Wales) was separate to the Unionist Party (Scotland). I think I’m right in saying that Douglas Home was never a member of the Conservative Party and was the last non-Tory Labour Prime Minister. A good trivia question that I’ve used before.
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