ABSTRACT
Labourism is an elusive concept and though frequently used lacks any agreed definition. However, all the various usages agree that it refers to the nexus (‘interdependence of two elements’: Penguin English Dictionary) between the trade unions and the Labour Party and the way this has conferred upon the latter a distinctive outlook, organisational design and way of operating. For McLean, ‘labourism is a name one might give to the view that more energetic steps should be taken towards working-class representation in Parliament in order to redress working-class grievances.’1 Similarly Morgan defined labourism as ‘an economic creed of support for the working class rather than a doctrine for the conquest and mobilisation of power.’2 However, the term has come to be most closely associated with critiques of the Labour Party from two opposing political quarters, the Marxist and (what we shall call) the ‘proto-New Labour’. Both argue that Labour’s political outlook and modus operandi owe a heavy debt to its trade union founders and both agree that, whatever the short-term advantages, this imposed upon the Party heavy long-term costs – though they differ sharply on how they construe these costs.
