- Source: British left
The British left (or The Left in Britain) can refer to multiple concepts. It is sometimes used as shorthand for groups aligned with the Labour Party. It can also refer to other individuals, groups and political parties that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United Kingdom. There are various sub-groups, split between reformist and revolutionary viewpoints. Progressives and social democrats believe that equality can be accommodated into existing capitalist structures, but they differ in their criticism of capitalism and on the extent of reform and the welfare state. Anarchists, communists, and socialists, among others on the far left, on the other hand argue for abolition of the capitalist system.
History
Leftism in the United Kingdom is thought to stretch back to the aftermath of the English Civil War in the 17th century, represented by groups such as the 'True Levellers' or Diggers. Chartism was one of the first post-civil war left-wing movements. Notions of socialism in Britain have taken many different forms from the utopian socialism and philanthropism of Robert Owen through to the reformist electoral project enshrined in the birth of the Labour Party.
The Great Unrest of the pre-WW1 years and the strikes of 1919 represented surges in left-wing activity. The Attlee ministry's establishment of the welfare-state is often considered a victory for the left. The New Left of 1968 represented another wave of activity. The miners' strike of 1984-5 saw the most recent large-scale working class movement; the anti-Poll Tax campaign of the late 1980s/early 1990s was also a significant left-wing social movement. The alter-globalisation and Occupy movements had a presence in Britain in the early-late 2000s, anti-austerity campaigns made up the bulk of the left's activity in the 2010s, and Black Lives Matter, pro-Palestine movements and environmental protests remain the largest movements of the 2020s.
= Historical
=Anti-Poll Tax Federation
Anti-Nazi League
Awkward squad (trade unionists)
Battle of Cable Street
Chartism
Communist Party of Great Britain
Diggers
General Strike
Great Dock Strike
Great Unrest
Independent Labour Party
Levellers
Merthyr Rising
Miners' strike (1972)
Miners' strike (1984)
Peasants Revolt
Peterloo Massacre
Revolutionary Communist Party
Social Democratic Federation
Socialist League
Tolpuddle Martyrs
Vietnam Solidarity Campaign
Contemporary
Black Lives Matter
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Enough is Enough
Extinction Rebellion
Just Stop Oil
People's Assembly Against Austerity
Squatting
Stop the War Coalition
Trade unionism
Key figures
The following is a list of figures considered significant for the British Left.
= Activists
=Mark Ashton
Bob Crow
Claudia Jones
Mick Lynch
Len McCluskey
Albert Meltzer
Sylvia Pankhurst
Arthur Scargill
= Journalists
=Aaron Bastani
Paul Foot
Owen Hatherley
Owen Jones
George Monbiot
Ash Sarkar
= Politicians
=Diane Abbott
Tony Banks, Baron Stratford
Tony Benn
Aneurin Bevan
Richard Burgon
Andy Burnham
Barbara Castle
Jeremy Corbyn
Michael Foot
George Galloway
Keir Hardie
Eric Heffer
Ian Lavery
Clive Lewis
Ken Livingstone
Caroline Lucas
Rebecca Long-Bailey
John McDonnell
Dennis Skinner
Zarah Sultana
Ellen Wilkinson
= Thinkers
=Tariq Ali
Perry Anderson
Gurminder K. Bhambra
Terry Eagleton
Mark Fisher
Paul Gilroy
Stuart Hall
David Harvey
Christopher Hill
Eric Hobsbawm
John Holloway
Ralph Miliband
William Morris
Rajani Palme Dutt
James Schneider
Ambalavaner Sivanandan
E. P. Thompson
Raymond Williams
Left-wing electoral organisations active in Britain
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 by membership levels, with 415,000 members as of July 2022. Labour has 412 seats in the House of Commons. The current Leader of the Labour Party is Keir Starmer, who was elected as the party's leader on 4 April 2020.
The second largest party on the British left, by membership, is the centre-left Scottish National Party (SNP), which had 72,186 members as of March 2023, despite only being active in Scotland; the SNP have 9 MPs.
The third largest party on the British left is the Green Party of England and Wales, whose membership reached over 54,000 in 2021; following the most recent general election the Greens have 4 MPs.
The other three political parties on the left and with representation in parliament are the centre-left Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) of Northern Ireland; the centre-left Plaid Cymru (who are only active in Wales) and Sinn Féin, also from Northern Ireland. Plaid has 4 MPs, the SDLP have 2 MPs, and Sinn Féin has 7 MPs, but the latter party does not sit in Westminster as it refuses to take the parliamentary Oath of Allegiance.
= Labour Party
=The biggest party on the political left in the United Kingdom in terms of members and representation is the Labour Party, which was founded as the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in 1900. With the party's rebranding as New Labour in the 1990s under the leadership of Tony Blair, the party accepted a number of economic policies associated with the Right, causing it to be identified as centrist (Blair himself stated that his ministry would have governed from the political centre) rather than socialist, despite adding democratic socialism to the party's constitution, and was considered by fewer critics as being a party of the left; Blair described New Labour's ideology as Third Way, like Bill Clinton's Democratic Party in the United States. The Labour Party under Blair's leadership accepted many of the neoliberal economic policies enforced by the previous Conservative Party governments in the 1980s and 1990s, and continued in successive Conservative governments in the 2010s.
When Ed Miliband was elected as Leader of the Labour Party in 2010, he announced the abandonment of the New Labour agenda, and promised to return to socialism, clamp down on tax avoidance, introduce a wealth tax in the form of a mansion tax, raise income tax for high earners, and break up the banks. The party was subsequently criticised by some, including Blair himself, as straying leftwards from the centre ground of British politics, and that Miliband was a more traditional left-wing politician. Others disputed this view, and put Labour's loss at the 2015 United Kingdom general election down to the party being too right-wing.
Labour's status as a socialist party has been disputed by those who do not see the party as being part of the left, although the general consensus under Jeremy Corbyn was that Labour was closer to the Left on the left–right political spectrum. As a result of this, there has always been tension between the Left and the Labour Party. The Corbyn Labour Party leadership campaign, which led to a landslide victory at the 2015 Labour Party leadership election held in the month of September, represented a revival of the Labour left and led to a significant increase in membership; in the shadow cabinet reshuffle that followed, John McDonnell (chairman of the Labour Representation Committee) and Diane Abbott (member of the Socialist Campaign Group) were both appointed to Corbyn's shadow cabinet. While not winning, Labour made significant gains in terms of vote share and modest improvements in terms of seats, enough to deny a Conservative majority and led to a hung parliament, at the 2017 United Kingdom general election, which was taken as a vindication by some of the left turn. The party fell in the 2019 United Kingdom general election to its lowest share of seats since 1935, although it was not the party's worst election in terms of vote share (it did better than in 1931, 1983, 1987, 2010 and 2015); many believe this was due to a complicated Labour Party manifesto and Brexit policy, a poor approach to campaigning, and the unpopularity of Corbyn's leadership.
Internal groups
Campaign for Labour Party Democracy
Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance
Labour Representation Committee
Momentum
Open Labour
Socialist Campaign Group
Magazine support
Chartist
Tribune
= Green Party of England and Wales
=In 2015, the membership of the Green Party of England and Wales quadrupled, and its support in national opinion polls sextupled. Several factors contributed, including the collapse of the Lib Dem vote, the influence of social media and greater awareness among younger people about the rise of other left-wing parties in Europe such as: Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece, as well as a rise in anti-austerity movements across the UK and Europe. Other factors included the Scottish independence referendum, which proved to be 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 Greens during and following their successes at 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 Greens be included in the leaders' debates for the 2015 general election. The Green Party has been included in a seven-way television debate. The Greens' 2015 spring conference had a record 1,300 members attend; the party became the second-largest of the European Greens in this period, as well as increasing significantly in national polls from an average 1% to 7%. It beat the Liberal Democrats to fourth place at the 2014 European Elections with 8%, under a proportional voting system, having a third MEP elected. However the Greens achieved only a 1.6% vote share at the 2017 general election, following a rejection by Labour of an election pact and an increase in vote share by the two major parties.
In the 2019 general election, the Green Party increased their vote share by 65% to 2.7%. In the 2021 United Kingdom local elections, the party made a net gain of 91 council seats, taking its national total to a record 444. As with Labour, the status of the Greens as a party of the political left has been disputed.
Internal groups
Green Left
= Other organisations
=The Workers Party of Britain was formed in December 2019. It is a socialist and socially conservative party. Its leader George Galloway briefly became the Member of Parliament for Rochdale in 2024, following a by-election.
The now defunct Respect Party (formed in 2004), 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 sole MP George Galloway – who was also the party leader. Respect disbanded after twelve years, on 18 August 2016.
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), founded in 2010, comprises the Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party and RMT trade union. As of 2016, TUSC had 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; subsequently TUSC stood fewer candidates in the 2016 and 2017 local elections, based on a case by case reckoning of the political stance of local Labour candidates. In May 2017, TUSC confirmed that it would stand no candidates at the forthcoming general election, and give full support to Labour. In 2018, TUSC suspended electoral activity until further notice. In September 2020, TUSC became active once again as its steering committee agreed it would stand candidates in the 2021 local elections. In 2024, TUSC stood 40 candidates in the general election.
Left Unity was formed in November 2013 and backed by a number of existing left-wing parties. Left Unity had an electoral pact with TUSC for the 2015 elections but renounced independent electoral activity, in favour of Labour, under the Corbyn leadership.
The Communist Party of Britain (CPB), is a split from (and effectively the political successor to) the historical Communist Party of Great Britain, once the largest British far-left organisation. In 2017, the CPB announced that it would field no candidates at that year's general election, and give support to Labour instead. In 2024, the party fielded 14 candidates in the general election.
Some small left and far-left parties continue to contest elections independently, such as the Socialist Party of Great Britain (the oldest extant left-wing political party, having formed in 1904). Other parties and groups are electorally inactive, renounce participation in elections, or work unofficially in support of, or advocate a vote for, the Labour Party.
Electorally active parties
Alliance for Green Socialism
Communist League
National Health Action Party
Socialist Equality Party
Socialist Labour Party
Socialist Party of Great Britain
Social Justice Party
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC)
Transform
Workers Party of Britain
Workers' Revolutionary Party
= Entryist groups within Labour Party =
Socialist Action
= Parties working within Transform =
Breakthrough Party
Left Unity
= Parties working within TUSC =
Socialist Party (England and Wales)
Socialist Party Scotland
Socialist Workers Party [in Scotland only]
= Others =
Alliance for Workers' Liberty
Anarchist Federation
Communist Party of Britain
Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist)
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist)
Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee)
Communist Workers Organisation
International Socialist League
New Communist Party of Britain
Revolutionary Communist Group
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist)
Socialist Alternative
Socialist Resistance
Solidarity Federation
Spartacist League
Workers' Fight
Workers' Power
= Active only in Scotland
=Republican Communist Network
Scottish Greens
Scottish National Party
Scottish Republican Socialist Movement
Scottish Socialist Party
Socialist Party Scotland
Active only in Wales
Plaid Cymru
Wales Green Party (semi-autonomous within Green Party of England and Wales)
= Local parties
=Old Swan Against the Cuts
Mebyon Kernow (only active in Cornwall)
West Dunbartonshire Community Party
Media and culture
The following is a list of media organisations and other progressive British cultural outputs explicitly associated with the Left.
= Comics
=Frankie Boyle
Steve Coogan
Nish Kumar
Stewart Lee
Josie Long
Alexei Sayle
Linda Smith
Mark Steel
= Events
=Durham Miners' Gala
Glastonbury Festival
Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival
The World Transformed
= Film
=I, Daniel Blake
Pride (film)
Adam Curtis
Ken Loach
Mike Leigh
= Television
=A Very British Coup
Bill Brand
Alan Bleasdale
Boys from the Blackstuff
Days of Hope
Jimmy McGovern
Our Friends in the North
= Theatre
=George Bernard Shaw
Jim Allen
Edward Bond
Howard Brenton
Trevor Griffiths
= Independent news sources
=Byline Times (founded 2014)
Evolve Politics (founded 2015)
Left Foot Forward (founded 2010)
Morning Star (Independent since 1945 but Britain's Road to Socialism, the programme of the CPB, underlies the paper's editorial stance)
New Statesman (founded 1913)
Novara Media (founded 2011)
Red Pepper (founded 1995)
The Canary (founded 2015)
The Guardian
Tribune
= Journals
=Historical Materialism
New Left Review
Race & Class
Socialist Register
= Online content creators
=Hbomberguy
Shaun (YouTuber)
Abigail Thorn
= Music
=Attila the Stockbroker
Roy Bailey
Billy Bragg
Chumbawamba
The Clash
Crass
Crass Records
Easterhouse
Brian Eno
Thee Faction
Sam Fender
Gang of Four
The Housemartins
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Robb Johnson
The Left Field
John Lennon
Ewan MacColl
Massive Attack
McCarthy
Radiohead
The Redskins
Red Wedge
Rock Against Racism
The Style Council
= Literature
=W. H. Auden
Edward Carpenter
Edith Nesbit
George Orwell
Michael Rosen
H. G. Wells
Oscar Wilde
Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
The Making of the English Working Class
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists
= Publishing Houses
=Pluto Press
Verso Books
= Publications affiliated to political organisations
=Emancipation and Liberation (Republican Communist Network)
News Line (WRP)
Scottish Socialist Voice (SSP)
Socialist Resistance periodical by a group of the same name
Socialist Standard (SPGB)
Socialist Studies quarterly journal by a group of the same name
Socialist Worker/Socialist Review (SWP)
Solidarity (AWL)
The New Worker (NCP)
The Socialist (SP)
Weekly Worker (CPGB-PCC)
World Socialist Web Site (SEP)
= Think tanks
=Compass ThinkTank
Centre for Labour and Social Studies: CLASS
Institute for Public Policy Research
See also
References
Further reading
Murray, Andrew (October 2019). The Fall and Rise of the British Left. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-78873-513-1.
Schneider, James (September 2022). Our Bloc: How We Win. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-83976-850-7.
Leys, Colin; Panitch, Leo (May 2020). Searching for Socialism: The Project of the Labour New Left from Benn to Corbyn. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-78873-834-7.
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