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The Rise of Labour Politics (Final Chapter)

© Simon Hill

A very important reason the labour movement did not take off until after the First World War was that the bulk of the adult population was still without the vote. Also most working class people did not belong to an organisation and even by 1914 there was still less than 50% of the adult male workforce with trade union membership. The franchise system was biased against the poorer working class so many potential labour supporters were still without the vote. It is puzzling that the ILP and even the labour movement in general did not make universal adult suffrage a political priority as they stood to gain the most from it. Part of the reason for this was the puritanical attitude of many of the leading figures in the labour movement and in particular the ILP. They had a strong work ethic and a sense of socialist morality, which sought to exclude those who were thought to be poor largely due to their own, faults usually idleness or drunkenness. The failure of the labour movement to seek support among the poorest in society probably hampered their growth.

In 1908 the return of unemployment gave the left the political initiative, many skilled workers lost their jobs and this led to dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party who failed to provide support for working class demands. The visible sign of this anger was the ‘Right to Work’ demonstration on the 27th of June 1908 which attracted 35,000 protestors and included talks from socialists and trade unionists. The Liberal Party was failing to tackle unemployment, poverty and industrial unrest. However the labour movement still had difficulty consolidating their support into a political force, it was still too unorganised and more damaging it was fraught with internal divisions. These divisions were destructive to the movements' progress and often centred on arguments over how socialist their aims should be. The socialist organisations felt it was not socialist enough while the trade unions and Co-operative Societies were more intent on protecting their own interests.

From 1908 to 1914 the labour movement became more confident, they gained seats on the Glasgow City Council holding 10 in 1911. In 1913 they devised a municipal socialist programme which included Wheatley’s housing scheme to build municipal cottages to rent. The ILP in Glasgow were committed to a municipal socialism and trade unionism. They attracted a younger generation swayed by socialist arguments and speeches by the likes of Maxton and Wheatley. The labour movement by 1914 had established itself as a growing force in politics, the ILP had become a party rather than just a propaganda machine and its leaders were accepted as leaders of a larger movement. After the war the decline in social conditions, lack of solutions in the Liberal camp and failure to react to industrial disputes led to the take off of the labour movement and the Glasgow based ILP was the driving force behind it.

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