ABSTRACT
The timing of demands for independent labour politics varies from area to area and depends upon many factors: the energies of key local activists; may be specific local industrial disputes; the responsiveness of local Liberals. The progress to a trade-union-based independent party needs more than the frustrated ambition of trade unionists or the pointed snubs of Liberal politicians. It needs direction, enthusiasm, hard work and a strong educational campaign outside the trade unions. The state means the law and the courts, which shows themselves generally hostile to trade unionists; the state means regulation and control of working-class lives and the imposition of middle-class values by unsympathetic bureaucrats; most of all, the state means the hated Poor Law. In contrast, Conservative attitudes of enthusiasm for the monarchy and for the Empire, hostility to foreigners and the Irish, coupled with militant Protestantism, tended to be well received by many of the working class.
