Introduction

To describe the British Labour Party as a ‘broad church’ is to descend almost into cliché. Yet, like most clichés, it contains a kernel of truth. This, after all, was a party built on the back of a number of affiliated organizations: trade unions, socialist societies, trades councils, women’s associations, professional groups and, from 1918, constituency parties and, on occasion, co-operative societies. Each of these brought with them a range of opinions, customs and expectations, uniting in different ways in different places to form an array of local Labour organizations boasting varied compositions, experiences and priorities. Labour’s doctrine, meanwhile, non-determined to 1918 but recognizable as a form of socialism thereafter, combined a moral sense drawn from diverse religious and radical influences with a smart dose of working-class pragmatism instilled by those trade unions that formed the bedrock of the party.1 During the Great War (1914−18), pacifists and internationalists continued to pay their dues into the same pot as committed pro-war patriots; throughout the party’s history, the nature and extent of Labour’s socialism has proven a matter of fierce political (and intellectual) debate.