The Labour Party's component groups and their views

The ideas and programmes of the major political parties in Britain have never been systematic and defined, though there has seldom been any lack of those who would make them so. They have defeated system and unanimity because they have been moving amalgams of interests, aspirations and tactics, derived from a wide variety of sources, in continuous adjustment to context, both ideologically and practically. This had always been true of Conservatives and Liberals.

It was even more so for the Parliamentary Labour Party from its formal beginnings under that title in 1906. The performance of the Party between 1918 and 1939 was a drama, the climaxes of which were provided by the attempts, at moments of major decisions, to reconcile the elements so that a policy might be synthesised and group coherence maintained. Yet, though policy unanimity evaded the Party, there continued to be, at a certain level of aspiration and practicality, a solidarity of a kind such that the Party, in spite of its setbacks in 1924 and 1931, was in 1939 in a stronger position than ever.

The Labour Party had two major components, the trade union movement and the intellectuals. The trade union movement was rooted in the working classes, with little or no middle-class intrusion. It was disposed to regard the Labour Party as its own political wing, rather than as having any real independent existence.