Democratic Ideas and the British Labour Movement, 1880–1914

The first detailed study of an important debate in the history of the Labour movement.

Issues of democratic principle and form were of major importance in the pre-1914 socialist, trade union and Labour movements. This is the first detailed study of that debate, reflecting also on current arguments over democracy and electoral reform.This is the first detailed survey of democratic ideas on the British Left in the period leading to 1914. Socialists of the late nineteenth century inherited assumptions about the priority of democracy from a long tradition of British Radicalism. However, the advent of the Fabians, who rejected this tradition as primitive, and of an ILP leadership more concerned to enter than reform parliament, meant that the movement was split between 'strong' and 'weak' views of democracy. By the eve of the First World War a consensus was emerging that might have formed the basis for a more realistic and more radical approach to democracy than has actually been pursued by the Labour Party and the Left during the twentieth century. Democratic Ideas and the British Labour Movement assesses an important debate in the history of socialist ideas and in the formation of the British Labour movement.