ABSTRACT
George Shepherd’s nclc pamphlet Labour’s Early Days gives an interesting account of some of the personalities who attended the first conference, and relates that of the 129 delegates who were present twenty-six were afterwards to become mps, some of them attaining high office in the Labour Party. Keir Hardie knew that the socialist remedy could not be applied without political organisation and his efforts in establishing the Scottish Labour Party in 1888 which led to the formation of the ilp, and his leading part in the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, showed him as the major figure in the attempt to form a new party for labour in Britain. With this conference and the proposals the history of the Labour Party began and pioneering period of the socialist movement in Britain ended. Many trade union leaders (aligned with the ilp) believed with Hardie that independent political organisation was necessary if socialist remedies were to have a chance.
