ABSTRACT
The Left held that the existing labour movement was too susceptible to the conventions of British society and of Parliamentary government, and was thus incapable of changing society. Yet even the most sectarian groups recognized that the Labour Party, for all its faults, could be a ready-made instrument for bringing about Socialism. Left discussion of the role of the Labour Party was constantly faced with a contradiction. If Socialism could only be reached by the efforts of the mass working-class movement, then it had to be assumed that the working-class movement could be committed to a Socialist programme. Yet in the eyes of the Left the British Labour Party was not Socialist. The dilemma was how to convert the mass movement to Socialism, how to make it into an effective instrument for changing society or, alternatively, how to build a new working-class movement which would be more Socialist than the Labour Party. At one time, the Left seemed to favour complete withdrawal from the Party, at another to attach itself to the Labour Party in an attempt to influence it in the desired direction. The only continuing feature was the agreement that the Labour Party was not pursuing a Socialist policy and was not an effective organization, either electorally or politically, for immediately advancing the aims of the Left.
