Rise Of The Labour Party example essay topic

The rise o the labour party was due to many factors. Factors such as the movement of people from the countryside to cities which changed the economic structure of britain and also changed the social structure and this led to the need for political change. The need for political change to help the working class people who were living in poverty which had been highlighted by booth and rowntree who surveyed LOndon an york two of england's major cities. Better education led to the realisation that the two existing political parties were not suitable for the working class' needs. All were factors which to the rise of the labour party. The british government was run mainly by rich aristocrats because working class people could not afford to become MPs but in 1911 they introduced payment for MPs which let the working class represent themselves in their constituencies in parliament either the liberal or conservative parties.

Although this had happened the rich aristocracy still believed that they knew best when dealing with the poor even though they did nothing to help the poor. This attitude was based partly on the principle of laissez fair which meant little help was given to the poor and the little help that was given was harsh like the poor houses. These factors needed to be changed and the only way was through political change this also lead to the rise of the labour party. Another reason for the rise of the labour party was the failure of the 1832 act which granted the vote to small business men, financiers and of the industrial revolution but ignored the organised sections of working class. Although the 1832 act failed to grant working class people the vote the 1867, 1872 and 1884 acts gave the vote to more working class people, although this had happened the new voters did not have a party to represent them. These problems also helped the rise of the labour party through the necessity of of a party to represent the working class.

The skilled working class organised themselves into model unions which protected their members interests this showed that through organisation the rich could be forced the relive some of the bad conditions. The growth of the new unions and also their success like the match girls and dockers showed that even the poorest working class people could win against the upper class and this led to the potential of the same being on political terms. These situations showed that working class people could organise and win. Groups like the chartists and TU's helped the rise of the labour party through the of ideas from the chartists and organizational skills from the TU's. All of these contributions were put into action by kerr hard ie who founded the in dependant labour party which was intended to get social changes which pointed in a socialist direction. In 1900 the labour representation comite e which was set up which was a distinct labour group in parliament and was a product of a conference in which the ILP, Fabian society and SDF all came to a decision of how socialist the party should be.

The parties main aim was 'legislate in the interests of he working class'.