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The term British Left can refer to a range of political parties, movements and events in Britain. These political parties take the position of either centre-left, left-wing or far-left.
Contents
- Labour Party
- Internal groups
- Magazine support
- Green Party of England and Wales
- Other organisations
- Active electoral parties
- Non electoral groups
- Active only in Scotland
- Active only in Wales
- Publications affiliated to organisations
- Unaffiliated
- Archive
- References
The largest political party associated with the British left is the centre-left Labour Party, which is also the biggest political party in the UK with over half a million members. The Labour Party has 229 seats in the House of Commons.
The largest left-wing party in Britain, by membership, is the Green Party of England and Wales. As of August 2016, membership is approximately 53,000. The party has one Member of Parliament (MP).
The other two political parties in Britain on the left and with representation in the UK parliament are the centre-left Scottish National Party and the left-wing Plaid Cymru. The Scottish National Party are only active in Scotland and Plaid Cymru are only active in Wales. The SNP has 54 MPs and Plaid has 3 MPs.
Labour Party
The biggest left wing party in the UK in terms of members and representation is the Labour Party, which was formed as the Labour Representation Committee in 1900. With the party's rebranding as New Labour in the 1990s under Tony Blair's leadership, the party accepted a number of Thatcherite policy positions, causing it to be identified as neoliberal rather than democratic socialist, and no longer a party of the Left; Blair himself described New Labour's ideology as a "Third Way". When Ed Miliband became leader of the Labour Party in 2010, however, he described the Labour Party as "democratic socialist", pledging to clamp down on tax avoidance, introduce a wealth tax in the form of a Mansion Tax, raise income tax on the highest earners in Britain and break up the banks.
As an opposition party under Miliband's leadership, the party was criticised by some, including former leader Tony Blair, as straying leftwards from the "centre ground" of British politics, and that Miliband was a "traditional left-wing" politician. However, others disputed this view, and put Labour's loss of the 2015 UK election down to the party being too right wing. The unexpected landslide victory of Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 Labour leadership election represented a resurgence of the Labour Left and led to a surge in membership; in the reshuffle that followed, John McDonnell (chairman of the Labour Representation Committee) and Diane Abbott (member of the Socialist Campaign Group) were appointed to the Shadow Cabinet.
Labour's status as a left-wing party has nevertheless been disputed by those who do not see the party as part of the Left.
Internal groups
Magazine support
Green Party of England and Wales
In 2015, the membership of the Green Party quadrupled, and its support in national opinion polls sextupled. Several factors have contributed, including the collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote, the influence of social media and greater awareness among younger people about the rise of other leftist parties in Europe such as Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece, as well as a rise in anti-austerity movements across Europe and Britain. Other factors include the Scottish referendum, which has proved an inspiration for a new kind of politics. Other key factors had been the contrast in conferences of the Green Party and Labour in September 2014, and the media exclusion of the Green Party during and following their successes in the European elections. A petition against the media blackout of the Green Party reached 260,000 signatures. The party also received a significant spike in membership during January, 2015 following David Cameron's demand that the Green Party be included in the leaders' debates for the 2015 General Election. The Green Party has been included in a seven-way television debate. The Green Party of England and Wales' spring conference had 1,300 members attend, a record for the party.
The Green Party of England and Wales is now the second largest party of the European Greens, and has increased significantly in the national polls from an average 1% to 7%. It beat the Liberal Democrats to fourth place in the 2014 European Elections with 8%, under a proportional voting system, having a third MEP elected.
The status of the Greens as a party of the Left is also disputed.
Internal groups
Other organisations
The now defunct Respect Party, which at one point had the support of other Left groups (such as the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Resistance) and some electoral success, lost its last local councillors in 2014 and its only MP George Galloway - who was also the party leader - in 2015.
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition was founded in 2010, comprising the Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, and Independent Socialist Network. As of 2016, TUSC has a small number of affiliated local councillors. Following the 2015 election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, TUSC floated plans for a future electoral pact with any Labour councillors standing on an anti-austerity platform.
A new party, Left Unity, was formed in November 2013 and backed by a number of existing leftist parties. Left Unity had an electoral pact with TUSC for the 2015 elections but has since renounced independent electoral activity in favour of the Labour Party.
Some left and far-left parties contest elections independently, such as the Socialist Party of Great Britain (the oldest extant left party, having formed in 1904) and the Communist Party of Britain, a split from and effectively the political successor to the historical Communist Party of Great Britain, once the largest British far-left organisation. Other parties or groups are electorally inactive or renounce participation in elections.