The National Free Labour Association

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Abstract
The origins of the British Labour Party are many and complex. They have formed the subject of innumerable works of historical scholarship and of journalism, for it is possible to tell the story equally forcefully in terms either of political theory or of personalities. But no matter how much weight may be given to the role of political ideas, and no matter how much importance one may attach to the appearance of the “right” men and women at the “rightrd; time, the crucial part played by the trade-union movement cannot be denied. It was the growing support derived from the trade unions which breathed life into the Labour Representation Committee after 1900, and this in spite of strongly-entrenched hostility from within the trade unions to socialism and all its works. The stages by which the unions became reconciled to, and then enthusiastic supporters of, the Labour Party are well known. Self-interest, not socialism, prompted the unions to support separate labour representation in Parliament. Until January 1901 only 29 per cent of those unions affiliated to the Trades Union Congress had decided to back the Labour Representation Committee. In the space of two years that proportion rose to over 56 per cent.

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