ABSTRACT
The War Emergency: Workers' National Committee, the only independent voice of the united British Labour movement after August 1914, was the primary institutional focus for the Sidney Webbs' socialist thought until 1918. Through his work on the committee, Webb became the guiding figure in the formulation of the only consistent and coherent wartime Labour programme. Under his unquestioned intellectual leadership, this body provided a firm foundation for the reorganization of the Labour Party in the last year of the war. The formation of the War Emergency Committee was an historical accident. Arthur Henderson envisaged an organization of unprecedented size and representation, which virtually would have constituted a Parliament of Labour. Besides the full Labour Party NEC and Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress (PCTUC), and the entire management committee of the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), the Peace Emergency Committee would also have included three members each from fifteen major Labour and socialist bodies.
