Talk:Labour Party (UK)

Infobox party ideology

I would like to know why the "ideology" section of the infobox is not in use. It would make it a lot easier for people just quickly skimming for key facts. I know there has been a lot of debate on ideology of the Labour Party, but it is no harder to define than any other party. I suggest putting 'Democratic socialism', 'Social democracy', 'Third Way' and 'Trade unionism'. These reflect the general trends of and within the party. Btw, sorry if this has been discussed haven't got time to read through all of the archives/talk pages as there has been a lot on ideology. Either way, I think I can be put in the infobox. I'm not wanting to debate ideology, just use of the summary table at the top. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gc12847 (talk • contribs) 02:28, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

It was extensively discussed before and it was not possible to agree a simple summary, hence the reference to a wider discussion. ----Snowded ^TALK 03:01, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

But from what I read, most of the discussion seemed to agree a long the lines of what I put. In the paragraph about ideology, 'democratic socialism', 'social democracy' and 'third way' are all named and said to be Labour ideologies. So why not put them in the infobox? A couple of people may have wanted to put other things (like neoliberalism and liberalism) but most people didn't agree. However, I think most people agree on those three.

From experience, it's really useful when reading about parties and political systems from other countries to have that ideology summary in the infobox so I don't have to read the body of the text. All the other parties have it. When you're quickly trying to compare and contrast parties, especially from a country whose political system you are not familiar with, it is so useful to have this quick summary, just to get a rough idea. If you want to know more, then you can read the text.

At the end of the day, as I have said, whatever the debates and discussions on here, you have put those three ideologies in the ideology description anyway, so why not put them in the infobox?

They call themselves democratic socialist, so that should be there. They have been numerous times describes as social democratic and/or third way, so they can both be there. And they were founded on the trade union movement, so that should definitely be there.

So what really is the controversy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gc12847 (talk • contribs) 08:05, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

It is far from clear if 'Third Way" still applies post Blair and if you read the previous discussions then you will see the disagreements over social democrat with democratic socialism. Personally I think the best solution is to have the latter two and leave third way etc. for the text. However there was no agreement for that last time so unless other editors want to reopen this I think its closed. I put a welcome notice on your page - please read it and in particular remember to sign your comments ----Snowded ^TALK 10:23, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Ok. I actually agree with you on the Third Way business, I just thought that seeing as it had been mentioned maybe it should be there. But I agree with you in putting the other two there at least. Maybe then if we both agree to put the other two then we should? It's just to make it easier for reader who want a to know roughly what the party stands for (or stands for in theory). Even the Australia Labour Party has social democracy down and they're more right than ours.

Sorry if I was a pain. Still learning how it all works round here, and have been very busy in the mean time.

Thanks a lot Gc12847 (talk) 10:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

IF other editors agree then I am OK with it, but without more agreement lets leave the current text as it was a prior consensus. Another tip by the way is to intent your comments with colons, makes it easier for others. I've done it above by way of illustration ----Snowded ^TALK 11:09, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I think I have said this before: It is always difficult to describe a party's ideology with just one ore two catchwords. But it is not more difficult in Labour's case than in other parties'. There is absolutely no reason to make an exemption just for Labour. Actually there are other parties whose ideologies are much more difficult to describe with the conventional categories and still we do it. I support Gc12847's proposal. --RJFF (talk) 15:19, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you RJFF. It is hard to use a few words to describe a party, but as you said, Labour isn't the worst in that respect. The Australian Labor Party is worse. It's good for convenience. I don't really understand all of the controversy around this, but oh well.

I know it has been discussed, but trade unionism could still go there, given that Labour still get the vast majority of funding from them. But it maybe isn't so necessary to do so. --Gc12847 (talk) 15:47, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Recent constitutional changes would make that controversial and the statement on funding looks likely to change. If RJFF is OK with "democratic socialism, social democratic' then I am (as I always was) happy with that. However I would wait a day or so, this has been controversial ----Snowded ^TALK 16:32, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Ok, sure thing. I'll wait a couple of days to see if anyone writes anything else, then I'll change it. ---Gc12847 (talk) 16:37, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Does "democratic socialism" only reference to the party's constitution or are there third-party sources that describe it as democratic socialist, too? --RJFF (talk) 17:37, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

We've been through this before so if it is going to be controversial we should go back to the older compromise which has stood. It doesn't take that much to find material however google scholar for example----Snowded ^TALK 19:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

They are all very dated, or about Labour's "retreat from democratic socialism". Wikipedia requires third-party references for every non-trivial statement, including categories of parties' ideologies. Labelling UKIP as libertarian, just because their consitution describes them as a libertarian party, was not accepted either. --RJFF (talk) 20:09, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

But its not just the constitution which is the point and reflects a different tradition. As I said this is old ground and we may have to go back to the previous compromise which gave more context. That is fine with me as well ----Snowded ^TALK 20:23, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

current political ideology

I don't understand the reluctance to change the ideology of the party on the page from centre-left. Labour are no longer a left-wing party!! they are no longer neo-liberal, and have a lot of right-leaning views - many of which are its economic policies. Yes, I understand Labour have been traditionally the UK's left wing party, but they have not been left wing since, at least, Blair took over and rebranded as 'New Labour'. There is even a section on the page titled 'Blue Labour', which discusses how Labour take a more right-wing approach to their politics nowadays. Nbdelboy (talk) 19:32, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Any citations to back up your opinions? — Richard BB 19:38, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

, , here's a few Nbdelboy (talk) 19:45, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Conservative home as a source, please .... ----Snowded ^TALK 19:55, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Within the context of the British political spectrum it is still centre-left. Also, a party is not just it's parliamentary form. Most of the local parties are still strongly socialist and there are a lot of socialist elements still there. As for Blue Labour, it is only slightly more 'conservative' on immigration but I would dispute that immigration is a left-right issue as many people on the far left are anti-immigration and anti-EU. Also, Blue Labour is against neoliberalism and favour guild socialism. It's also not an official policy and has actually somewhat fallen out of favour recently.

Ultimately, Labour is still more to the left than Conservatives or Lib Dems. Actually, it's now closer to what it was like under Hugh Gaitskell than anything else (he tried to get rid of clause 4 too). If anything I'd like to see what their 2015 manifesto will be. Either way, leave it for now. Gc12847 (talk) 20:04, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

According to Political Compass the Labour Party have been center right since at least 1999 In your estimation how many more center right Labour manifestos have to be produced before the page is updated to reflect this?

Related to this, can someone at least add citations to back up the content in the ideology box and Political position box?

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2014

I want to edit the Labour Party wiki page. I have some reliable sources to add to the wiki page with regards to ideology. The last person who edit this was not providing any sources. Here are my sources: http://www.palgrave.com/pdfs/1403920656.pdf http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/458626.stm http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/Acrobat/New%20Labour%20and%20public%20opinion.pdf SocialDemocraticSocialist100 (talk) 18:44, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 19:16, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Centrism and the Third Way

So that I don't have to wade through previous messages, I will make my case here and it is really quite simple: as demonstrated by the sources I have provided, and those provided in the "Ideology" section, the Labour Party has, since 1994, developed and entrenched a visible tendency to the Third Way and political centrism. Unless adequet citation is provided or a responce is made I will revert any edits make in that regard, and report any changes to a second administrator. The reluctance to respond to what is an evidently simple proposition suggests to me that this is in some way at least politically motivated. Hayek79 (talk) 13:34, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

This has been taken from the ideology section, it is very well referenced and supports my case entirely. If the body of text in the article is inconsistent with the content of the infobox I do not understand why I should have to some here to ask for permission to make the necessary changes.

From the late-1980s onwards, the party has adopted free market policies, leading many observers to describe the Labour Party as social democratic or the Third Way, rather than democratic socialist. Other commentators go further and argue that traditional social democratic parties across Europe, including the British Labour Party, have been so deeply transformed in recent years that it is no longer possible to describe them ideologically as 'social democratic', and claim that this ideological shift has put new strains on the party's traditional relationship with the trade unions.

You owe it to other editors to read the previous arguments. Third Way was clearly applicable to the Blair period and your references cover that period, see earlier arguments. In British terms (as has been argued before) the Labour Party is Centre-Left. If you insert your changes again without consensus then you are edit warring and wikipedia handles that sort of behaviour by blocks. You are also meant to address content issues not make accusations as to the motivations of people who disagree with you. Assuming you are a new editor then I suggest you read up on policy, in particular the references in the 3rr notice on your talk page. ----Snowded ^TALK 13:44, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Apologies I haven't made myself clear, I did read the other messages, the above proposition hasn't changed in the light of those. I thought we'd start afresh. In response to your argument about the Labour Party being on the "political left", that may be the case, but I will refer you to the Democratic Party (United States) page where the political position in the infobox was removed because the label "Centre-left" would have been inappropriate in reference to other left-of-centre parties. Therefore although the Labour Party is to the left of British politics, as compared with their left-of-centre contemporaries in Europe and elsewhere they are very much to the right, which consequently should not preclude reference to centrist elements of modern Labour ideology. Further, since Blair there has been a strong centrist tendency in Labour Party politics embodied by his Third Way, a component part of which is the Blue Labour trend; I therefore feel it is necessary to credit this in the infobox without removing reference to it's centre-left tendencies, hence "Centre to Centre-left". Hayek79 (talk) 14:01, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

You also removed the citation that I provided for the claim that the party is a proponent of Social Democracy. Hayek79 (talk) 14:08, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I really don't see why we need to start afresh unless new arguments have been raised and they haven't been. (1) Most parties have moved to the centre in some ways, it does not alter the fact that the Labour Party in British terms is centre left, more so now than under Blair, (2) remember his faction did not win the leadership election. (3) Blue labour is around but its not clear if it in anyway defines the labour party and those types of views have been around for years. So, as other editors have said I see no justification for saying centre to centre left. (4) The political parties in the US are generally to the right of those in Europe so I don't see that argument. (5) As to the citation, there is more than enough to establish that already isn't there? ----Snowded ^TALK 05:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

(1) That's an assertion, I have provided adequate evidence of the opposite being the case. (2) Yet it is still comprises a significant proportion of the parliamentary party, several shadow cabinet members have described themselves as Blairite. (3) Figures ranging from Chuka Umunna to David Lammy are supporters of the trend, and Ed Miliband wrote a favourable foreword to their associated book "The Labour Tradition and the Politics of Paradox". (4) Don't see that argument? The Democratic Party is not described as Centre-left despite being to the left of US politics, so there is a precedent there for not labelling a party as being exclusively one thing and I did not remove "Centre-left" in my edit. Surely we should credit what is a significant centrist trend in the party with reference in the infobox? And are parties in Britain not very much to the right of their European counterparts? Are the French Socialists not very much more radical than the Labour Party, further, is the UUP not very much to the left of the Conservative Party? (5) I don't believe there is any citation to support the claim, as I have already said, the citation which is there supports my case. And why is additional citation a bad thing? Hayek79 (talk) 06:30, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

And whereas in previous discussions you have explained that the party ideology is too complex to pin down you now insist on an un-cited reference to "democratic socialism" which is entirely misleading. Do you realise the constitutional change from "social and democratic" to "democratic socialist" happened under Blair? Hayek79 (talk) 06:41, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, while the official line of the French Socialist Party is more left that the British Labour Party, I wouldn't say that is particularly the case with most of the centre-left parties in Europe (i.e. Socialist Workers Party in Spain, Labour Party in the Netherlands), which are similar to the the British Labour Party. The British Labour is also more left than the Australian and New Zealand Labor/Labour Parties and somewhat more left than the US Democrats. Also, the UMP in France is not particularly more left than the British Conservatives.

Also, remember that while the top of the party is dominated by the right wing, much of the party is made up of strong left-wing socialists, which include many of the local parties. In many areas, the local parties have not changed significantly since before the Blair years. Also, from a purely objective stance, the party leadership currently supports free, universal health-care; a wealfare state; a higher/living minimum wage; freeze in energy bills; increasing the top income tax to 50%; and part renationalisation of the railways. These things would be considered at least centre-left on any objective left-right political scale, and this is from the most right-wing part of the party. So I think placing the Labour Party as centre left would be justified even on an objective scale, not just within the British context. And again, this is not including the much more left wing elements which are still in the party. I think people have to remember that the political spectrum in the post-war era was more to the left than normal, and now it is more to the right (and this is in all countries these days). Also, the current Parliamentary Labour Party is more left wing the when under Ramsey MacDonald IMO. Gc12847 (talk) 11:55, 14 August 2014 (UTC)