ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the advent of a new political force which was to become the Labour Party’s steady, though not always fully contented, ally during the period which culminated in the election victory of 1945. The new Labour Party Constitution was drafted, mainly by Arthur Henderson and Sidney Webb, in 1917, and, after approval by the Party Executive, was widely circulated in readiness for presentation to the Annual Conference in January, 1918. Henderson had to reckon not only with the Labour Party and the Trade Unions, but also with his colleagues in the War Cabinet. In 1918, a good many Trades Councils obediently converted themselves into Local Labour Parties, though many did not, and though, in many places where the conversion was temporarily achieved, separate Trades Councils were re-founded later on. Land, on the one hand, and fuel, power and transport on the other occupied the key positions in the Labour Party’s socialisation programme.
