Margaret Gaj ( née Dunlop , 28 January 1919 – 26 June 2011) was a Dublin restaurant owner and political activist.
87-735: Margaret Dunlop was born in Scotland in 1919 to Irish parents. From an early age, she had an interest in politics and as a teenager she became a member of the Independent Labour Party . As a pacifist she joined the Red Cross as a nurse during the Second World War . During her time as a nurse she met a Polish soldier, Boleslaw Gaj, and they married. He was working as an electrician with the RAF , having previously served in
174-553: A Labour government took office it should hold an enquiry into the banking system that would prepare a detailed scheme for transferring the Bank of England to public control, revise the operation of the Bank Acts and ensure that "control of credit is exercised in the national interest and not in the interest of powerful financial groups" by making creditors shift entirely to cheques and possibly getting rid of gold reserves , thus ending
261-553: A November 1976 article in the Irish Times described her as an "'awful subversive". When Noel Browne left the Labour party in 1977, she followed him into the short-lived Socialist Labour Party . She died aged 92 on 26 June 2011. Boneslaw Gaj died in 1975 and Margaret Gaj retired from the restaurant business in 1980. Upon the closure of "Gaj's", she hung a notice on the door thanking her customers but noting "It's not easy to be
348-746: A close, working-class representation in political office became a great concern for many Britons. Many who sought the election of working men and their advocates to the Parliament of the United Kingdom saw the Liberal Party as the main vehicle for achieving this aim. As early as 1869, a Labour Representation League had been established to register and mobilise working-class voters on behalf of favoured Liberal candidates. Many trade unions themselves became concerned with gaining parliamentary representation to advance their legislative aims. From
435-659: A four-page broadsheet published in Glasgow, and sent greetings to the conference which established a Communist Party of Great Britain , although they did not attend. In addition to cutting its ties with the Second International, the 1920 Annual Conference of the ILP directed its executive to contact the Swiss Socialist Party with a view to establishing an all-inclusive international which would join
522-694: A meeting of advocates of an independent labour organisation. An arrangements committee was established and a conference called for the following January. This conference was chaired by William Henry Drew and was held in Bradford during 14–16 January 1893 at the Bradford Labour Institute, operated by the Labour Church . It proved to be the foundation conference of the Independent Labour Party, and MP Keir Hardie
609-623: A motion "calling for a special conference to establish a voice for working people within parliament. Within the year the conference had been held and the Labour Representation Committee established (the forerunner of the Labour Party)." The major TUC affiliated unions still make up the great bulk of the British Labour Party affiliated membership, but there is no formal/organisational link between
696-409: A new society." While this inspirational presentation of socialism as a humanitarian necessity made the party accessible as a sort of secular religion or a means for the practical implementation of Christian principles in daily life, it bore with it the great weakness of being non-analytical and thus comparatively shallow. It also offered a political home for some of the women's franchise movement in
783-654: A new system. The Parliamentary Committee became the General Council, representing thirty groups of workers. The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress became chief permanent officer of the TUC, and a major figure in the British trade union movement. The system was successfully implemented by Fred Bramley and Walter Citrine . By 1927 the TUC had the making of a trade union bureaucracy similar to
870-532: A number of other European socialist groups into the " Second and a Half International " between 1921 and 1923. The party was a member of the Labour and Socialist International between 1923 and 1933. At the 1922 general election several ILP members became MPs (including future ILP leader James Maxton ) and the party grew in stature. The ILP provided many of the new Labour MPs, including John Wheatley , Emanuel Shinwell , Tom Johnston and David Kirkwood . However,
957-561: A restructuring of society, also saw the Liberals as the most obvious means for obtaining working-class representation. Within two years of its foundation in 1884, the gradualist Fabian Society officially committed itself to a policy of permeation of the Liberal Party. A number of so-called " Lib-Lab " candidates were subsequently elected Members of Parliament by this alliance of trade unions and radical intellectuals working within
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#17327873847501044-462: A small group of like-minded radical pacifists, maintained an unflinching opposition to the government and its pro-war Labour allies. The 1917 Russian Revolution Conference in Leeds called for "the complete independence of Ireland , India and Egypt ". During the war the ILP's criticism of militarism was somewhat muted by public condemnation and periodic episodes of physical violence, which included
1131-560: A socialist in a capitalist society". The Gajs had two sons; Wladek and Tadek. Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party ( ILP ) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford , after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals ' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie , became its first chairman. The party remained positioned to
1218-471: A straight fight with the Conservatives. The electoral debacle of 1895 marked an end to the unbridled optimism which had attended the party's foundation. From its beginning, the ILP was never a homogeneous unit, but rather attempted to act as a " big tent " party of the working class, advocating a rather vague and amorphous socialist agenda. Historian Robert E. Dowse has observed: "From the beginning
1305-667: A total of about 5.5 million members. Paul Nowak is the TUC's current General Secretary, serving from January 2023. The TUC's decision-making body is the Annual Congress, which takes place in September. Between congresses decisions are made by the General Council , which meets every two months. An Executive Committee is elected by the Council from its members. Affiliated unions can send delegates to Congress with
1392-412: A trade unionist was likely to demand. Fervent and emotional, the socialism of the ILP could accommodate, with only a little strain, temperance reform, Scottish nationalism , Methodism , Marxism , Fabian gradualism , and even a variety of Burkean conservatism . Although the mixture was a curious one, it did have the one overwhelming virtue of excluding nobody on dogmatic grounds, a circumstance, on
1479-461: A wild scene on 6 July 1918, during which an agitated group of discharged soldiers rushed an ILP meeting being addressed by Ramsay MacDonald in the Abbey Wood section of London. Stewards at the door of the ILP meeting were overpowered by the mob, who in what was described as a "riotous scene" broke chairs and wielded their parts as weapons, seizing the auditorium and dispersing the socialists into
1566-487: Is now Princess Street and was then David Street; the building is at no. 103). The fact that the TUC was formed by Northern Trades Councils was not coincidental. One of the issues which prompted this initiative was the perception that the London Trades Council (formed in 1860 and including, because of its location, many of the most prominent union leaders of the day) was taking a dominant role in speaking for
1653-449: The 1895 general election . With the NAC taking a lead in organising the party's contests , and with finance tight just 28 candidates ran under the ILP banner. A special conference decided that support could be given to either ILP or SDF candidates, which brought a further four contests into the picture. None was elected, however, with even the popular party leader Keir Hardie going to defeat in
1740-798: The British Socialist Party , the Socialist Labour Party , and radical groups in Wales and Scotland . "The emancipation of the British working class and of the working class of the whole world depends upon the Communist elements of England forming a single Communist Party", the ECCI declared. The agitation for affiliation to the Third International of Moscow came to a head in 1921 at the annual conference of
1827-634: The Dublin Housing Action Committee along with other progressive and left-wing activists. Gaj was one of the five founding members of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement in 1970. They had their meetings in her restaurant on Baggot Street every Monday. Gaj, who was 20 years older or more than most of the other activists in the IWLM, was affectionally referred to as "Mrs Gaj" or "Mother" by the other members. Other campaigns Gaj
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#17327873847501914-643: The French Air Force after escaping from Poland until France too fell to Nazi Germany . Unhappy in post-war Britain, Margaret and Boleslaw moved to Ireland in 1948. The Gajs first settled in County Wicklow where they attempt to run a farm. However, they soon pivoted to running a cafe in Baltinglass . Both the Gajs became Irish citizens in 1951. Although popular, a cafe serving Polish cuisine
2001-541: The Labour Party was formed in 1906, the ILP immediately affiliated to it. This affiliation allowed the ILP to continue to hold its own conferences and devise its own policies, which ILP members were expected to argue for within the Labour Party. In return, the ILP provided a good part of Labour's activist base during its early years. The emergence and growth of the Labour Party, a federation of trade unions with
2088-615: The Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick Library. The archive contains files from about 1920 up to 2000 consisting of correspondence, internal and external documents, minutes, reports, printed material and press statements. The TUC campaigns on a wide range of issues relating to the experience of people at work. The TUC succeeded in forcing Sports Direct to undergo an independent review into their treatment of workers in September 2016. In October 2016,
2175-515: The Social Democratic Federation (SDF), in 1881. Other socialist intellectuals, despite not sharing the concept of class struggle were nonetheless frustrated with the ideology and institutions of the Liberal Party and the secondary priority which it appeared to give to its working-class candidates. Out of these ideas and activities came a new generation of activists, including Keir Hardie , a Scot who had become convinced of
2262-503: The Social Democratic Federation , and individual representatives of a number of other socialist and labour groups. German Socialist leader Edward Bernstein was briefly permitted to address the gathering to pass along the best wishes for success from the Social Democratic Party of Germany . A proposal was made by a Scottish delegate, George Carson , to name the new organisation the "Socialist Labour Party", but this
2349-686: The dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet system to Great Britain, and its view on the necessity of armed force as a universal principle. In July 1920 the fledgling Comintern gave an unequivocal reply: while the presence of communists inside the organisation was acknowledged, and their membership in a new Communist Party welcomed, there would be no joint organisation with those like "the Fabians, Ramsay MacDonald , and Snowden " who had previously made use of "the musty atmosphere of parliamentary work" and "petty concessions and compromises" on behalf of
2436-455: The first Labour government , returned to office in 1924, proved to be hugely disappointing to the ILP. This came despite 30% of the cabinet holding ILP membership; of the most prominent of these figures, Ramsay MacDonald was removed as editor of the ILP's Socialist Review in 1925, and Philip Snowden resigned from the ILP in 1927. The ILP's response to the first Labour government was to devise its own programme for government. Throughout 1928,
2523-595: The internationalist left-wing socialist parties with their revolutionary socialist brethren of the new Moscow international. In a letter dated 21 May 1920, ILP chairman Richard Wallhead and National Council member Clifford Allen asked a further set of questions of the Comintern. The Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) was asked for its positions on such matters as demands for rigid adherence to its programme, applicability of
2610-797: The "General Staff of the Labour Movement" it incorporated the Trades Councils who had given birth to it, eventually becoming the body which authorised these local arms of the TUC to speak on behalf of the wider Trade Union Movement at local and County level. Also, as the TUC became increasingly bureaucratised, the Trades Councils (often led by militant and communist-influenced lay activists) found themselves being subject to political restrictions and purges (particularly during various anti-communist witch-hunts) and to having their role downplayed and marginalised. In some areas (especially in London and
2697-491: The 1870s a series of working-class candidates financially supported by trade unions were accepted and supported by the Liberal Party. The federation of British unions, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), formed its own electoral committee in 1886 to further advance its electoral goals. Many socialist intellectuals, particularly those influenced by Christian socialism and similar notions of the ethical need for
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2784-583: The 40 Labour MPs in Parliament lent their support to the recruiting campaign for the Great War . Only one section held aloof—the Independent Labour Party. The ILP's insistence on standing by its long-held ethically based objections to militarism and war proved costly both in terms of its standing in the eyes of the general public as well as its ability to hold sway over the politicians who ran under its banner. A stream of its old Members of Parliament left
2871-626: The British textile industry. There followed a strike in Bradford , the Manningham Mills strike, which produced as a by-product the Bradford Labour Union , an organisation which sought to function politically independently of either major political party. This initiative was replicated by others in Colne Valley , Halifax , Huddersfield and Salford. Such developments showed that working-class support for separation from
2958-410: The ILP attempted to influence the trade unions to back a working-class political party: they sought, as Henry Pelling states: 'collaboration with trade unionists with the ultimate object of tapping trade union funds for the attainment of Parliamentary power.' The socialism of the ILP was ideal for achieving this end; lacking as it did any real theoretical basis it could accommodate practically anything
3045-455: The ILP developed a "Socialism in Our Time" platform, largely formulated by H. N. Brailsford , John A. Hobson and Frank Wise . The programme consisted of eight policies: Of these eight policies, the living wage, the unemployment allowance, nationalisation of banking and the bulk purchase of raw materials and foodstuffs were the chief concern of the ILP. The centerpiece of the ILP program
3132-557: The ILP formally disaffiliated from the International in the spring of 1920. In January 1919, Moscow issued a call for the formation of a new Third International , a formation which held great appeal to a small section of the ILP's most radical members, including economist Emile Burns , journalist R. Palme Dutt , and the future Member of Parliament Shapurji Saklatvala , along with Charles Barber, Ernest H. Brown, Helen Crawfurd , C. H. Norman, and J. Wilson. They called themselves
3219-533: The ILP had been secured in the wake of his disillusionment with the Liberal Party over its rejection of a trade unionist candidate in the 1894 Sheffield Attercliffe by-election . While there were substantial personal tensions between the four, they shared a fundamental view that the party should seek alliance with the unions and rather than an ideology-based socialist unity with the Marxist Social Democratic Federation . Following
3306-503: The ILP's leadership meant many converts to the Labour Party continued to join through the ILP, a process which continued until about 1925. On 11 April 1914 the party celebrated its 21st anniversary with a congress in Bradford. The party had grown well in the previous decade, standing with a membership of approximately 30,000. The rank and file membership of the party as well as its leadership were pacifist, now as ever, having held from
3393-450: The ILP. There an overwhelming vote of the party's branches voted not to affiliate with the Third International. This decision was followed by the exit of the defeated radical faction, which immediately joined the CPGB. The " centrism " of the ILP, caught between the reformist politics of the Second International and the revolutionary politics of the Third International, led it to leading
3480-482: The Labour Party as being too timid and moderate in their attempts at social reform, detached as it was from the socialist objective during its first years. Consequently, in 1912 came a split in which many ILP branches and a few leading figures, including Leonard Hall and Russell Smart , chose to amalgamate with the SDF of H. M. Hyndman in 1912 to found the British Socialist Party . Until 1918, individuals could only join
3567-485: The Labour Party through an affiliated body, the most significant of which were the Fabian Society and the ILP. As a result, particularly from 1914, many individuals – particularly ones formerly active in the Liberal Party – joined the ILP, in order to become active in the Labour Party. While affiliated body membership was not required after 1918, the presence of MacDonald and other leading Labour Party figures in
Margaret Gaj - Misplaced Pages Continue
3654-433: The Labour Party was "not an organisation but rather 'the expression of a great principle,' since it 'had neither programme nor constitution". Hardie emphasised the fundamental demand of the new organisation as being the achievement of economic freedom and called for a party structure which gave full autonomy to every locality, and only seeking to bind these groups "to such central and general principles as were indispensable to
3741-512: The Left Wing Group of the ILP. The conservative leadership of the ILP, notably Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden , strongly opposed affiliation to the new Comintern. In opposition to them the radical wing of the ILP organised itself as a formal faction called the Left Wing Group of the ILP in an effort to move the ILP into the Communist International. The faction began to produce its own bi-weekly newspaper called The International ,
3828-649: The Liberal Party was growing in strength. Further arguments for the formation of a new party were to be found in Robert Blatchford 's newspaper The Clarion , founded in 1891, and in Workman's Times , edited by Joseph Burgess . The latter collected some 3,500 names of those in favour of creating a party of labour independent from the existing political organisations. At the 1892 general election , held in July, three working men were elected without support from
3915-496: The Liberal Party. The idea of working with the middle-class Liberal Party to achieve working-class representation in parliament was not universally accepted, however. Marxist socialists, believing in the inevitability of class struggle between the working class and the capitalist class, rejected the idea of workers making common cause with the petty bourgeois Liberals in exchange for minor, palliative reform legislation. The British orthodox Marxists established their own party,
4002-666: The Liberals: Keir Hardie in West Ham South , John Burns in Battersea , and Havelock Wilson in Middlesbrough , the last of whom actually faced Liberal opposition. Hardie owed nothing to the Liberal Party for his election, and his critical and confrontational style in Parliament caused him to emerge as a national voice of the labour movement. At a TUC meeting in September 1892, a call was issued for
4089-783: The South East) the Regional Councils of the TUC (dominated by paid officials of the unions) effectively took over the role of the County Associations of Trades Councils and these paid officials replaced elected lay-members as the spokespersons for the Trade Union Movement at County and Regional level. By the end of the 20th century local Trades Councils and County Associations of Trades Councils had become so ineffective and weak that many had simply faded into effective dissolution. The 1899 Congress saw
4176-416: The TUC and the party. The Scottish Trades Union Congress , which was formed in 1897, is a separate and autonomous organisation. The Parliamentary Committee grew slowly, confining itself to legal matters, and ignored industrial disputes. In 1916 Harry Gosling proposed that organised labour needed an administrative machine. Following the railway strike of 1919, Ernest Bevin and G. D. H. Cole proposed
4263-599: The TUC's campaign against the Trade Union Act 2016 won 'Best Public Affairs Campaign' at the PR Week Awards. In August 2022, the TUC declared its support for a £15 an hour minimum wage, which it says should be implemented "as soon as possible". The TUC was founded in the 1860s. The United Kingdom Alliance of Organised Trades , founded in Sheffield , Yorkshire, in 1866, was the immediate forerunner of
4350-613: The TUC, although efforts to expand local unions into regional or national organisations date back at least forty years earlier; in 1822, John Gast formed a "Committee of the Useful Classes", sometimes described as an early national trades council. The first TUC meeting was held in 1868 when the Manchester and Salford Trades Council convened the founding meeting in the Manchester Mechanics' Institute (on what
4437-675: The Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum and annual Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival and Rally commemorating the Tolpuddle Martyrs and their impact on trade unionism. The TUC Library preserves documents related to labour history in Britain and other countries, especially Europe and the Commonwealth . It was established in 1922 and now focuses on expanding the online and digital collections. The TUC archives are held at
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#17327873847504524-431: The Trade Union Movement as a whole. The second TUC meeting took place in 1869 at the Oddfellows Hall, Temple Street, Birmingham where delegates discussed the eight-hour working day, election of working people to Parliament and the issue of free education. Arising out of the 1897 Congress, a decision was taken to form a more centralised trade union structure that would enable a more militant approach to be taken to fighting
4611-465: The UK, the Liverpool branch appointing Alice Morrissey as the branch secretary (1907–08) and first female delegate to a regional Labour Representative Committee. As the movement for women's suffrage grew, the ILP had engaged with the non-militant suffragists, for example, Mary H. J. Henderson , Parliamentary Secretary for the Scottish Women's Suffrage Societies, chaired a joint meeting with ILP, with Ethel Snowden as key speaker in Dundee in 1914. As
4698-420: The abolition of the position of party "President" in 1896 testified to the power of such arguments. Nonetheless, the NAC came to possess considerable power over the party's activities, including hegemonistic control over crucial matters such as electoral decisions and relations with other parties. The electoral defeat of 1895 hastened the establishment of centralising and anti-democratic practices of this kind. In
4785-443: The beginning that war was "sinful". The guns of August 1914 shook every left organisation in Britain. As one observer later put it: "Hyndman and Cunningham Graham , Thorne and Clynes had sought peace while it endured, but now that war had come, well, Socialists and Trade Unionists, like other people had got to see it through." With respect to the Labour Party, most of the members of the organisation's executive as well as most of
4872-406: The civil service. During the First World War, the Trades Union Congress generally supported the aims of the British Empire. However, in 1915, national conference voted against the introduction of military conscription. The TUC played a major role in the General Strike of 1926 , and became increasingly affiliated with the Labour Party in the 1930s, securing seven of the thirteen available seats on
4959-412: The employer and even achieving the socialist transformation of society. The result was the General Federation of Trade Unions which was formed in 1899. For some years it was unclear which body (the GFTU or the TUC) would emerge as the national trade union centre for the UK and for a while both were recognised as such by different fraternal organisations in other countries. However, it was soon agreed among
5046-406: The establishment of public measures to reduce unemployment and provide aid to the unemployed, a minimum-wage law, welfare programmes for orphans, widows, the elderly, the disabled, and the sick, the abolition of child labour , the abolition of overtime and piecework , and an eight-hour workday . The keynote address of the foundation conference was delivered by Keir Hardie, who observed that
5133-403: The failure of 1895, this leadership became reluctant to overextend the party by running in too many electoral races. By 1898 the decision was formally made to restrict electoral contests to those where a reasonable performance could be expected rather than putting forward as many candidates as possible to maximise exposure for the party and to accumulate a maximum total vote. The relationship with
5220-420: The historian John Callaghan has noted, in the hands of Hardie, Glasier, Snowden and MacDonald socialism was little more than "a vague protest against injustice." However, in 1909 the ILP laid the basis for the production of agitational material with the establishment of the National Labour Press . Still, the relationship between the ILP and the Labour Party was characterised by conflict. Many ILP members viewed
5307-473: The labour movement: [T]hese leaders have lost touch with the wide unskilled masses, with the toiling poor, they have become oblivious of the growth of capitalist exploitation and of the revolutionary aims of the proletariat. It seemed to them that because the capitalists treated them as equals, as partners in their transactions, the working class had secured equal rights with capital. Their own social standing secure and material position improved, they looked upon
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#17327873847505394-414: The last years of the 19th century, four figures emerged on the NAC who remained at the centre of the party shaping its direction for the next 20 years. In addition to the beloved party leader Keir Hardie came the Scot Bruce Glasier , elected to the NAC in 1897 and succeeding Hardie as Chairman in 1900; Philip Snowden , an evangelical socialist from the West Riding , and Ramsay MacDonald , whose adhesion to
5481-415: The left and at the time, which cannot be lightly dismissed." Of course in a party of loose and diverse opinions, the essential nature of the organisation and its programme would always remain a matter of debate. Initial decisions about party organisation were rooted in an idea of strict democracy. These arguments did have some impact, as the conference held to set policy prior to the 1895 general election and
5568-405: The left of Ramsay MacDonald 's Labour Representation Committee , which Hardie founded in 1900 and was soon renamed the Labour Party , and to which the ILP was affiliated from 1906 to 1932. In 1947, the organisation's three parliamentary representatives defected to the Labour Party, and the organisation rejoined Labour as Independent Labour Publications in 1975. As the nineteenth century came to
5655-477: The living wage differed from Labour practices. The ILP criticised the "Continental" method of paying wage allowances from employers' pools, which had been implemented in 1924 by Rhys Davies . The ILP proposed to redistribute the national income, meeting the cost of the allowances by taxing high income earners. The nationalisation of banking involved more significant changes to economic policy, and had nothing in common with Labour practices. The ILP proposed that once
5742-416: The local trade union activists. The TUC leadership subsequently tried to distort the result of the survey to justify its own opposition toward unauthorised marches. In 1945, the World Trade Union Conference took place in February at County Hall, London , before the first World Trade Union Congress was convened in Paris, October of the same year. In 1958, the TUC's current headquarters, Congress House ,
5829-410: The major unions that the TUC should take the leading role and that this would be the central body of the organised Labour Movement in the UK. The GFTU continued in existence and remains to this day as a federation of (smaller, often craft-based) trade unions providing common services and facilities to its members (especially education and training services). As the TUC expanded and formalised its role as
5916-399: The need for independent labour politics while working as a Gladstonian Liberal and trade union organiser in the Lanarkshire coalfield. Working with SDF members such as Henry Hyde Champion and Tom Mann he was instrumental in the foundation of the Scottish Labour Party in 1888. In 1890, the United States imposed a tariff on foreign cloth; this led to a general cut in wages throughout
6003-437: The newly created National Council of Labour in 1934. The TUC pressured the Labour Party into rejecting Ramsay MacDonald 's National Government formed to implement spending cuts, and no major trade unions joined his breakaway National Labour Organisation . A TUC survey of local trades councils who were approached by unemployed marchers for support in 1936 shows widespread support for unemployed workers' protest marches among
6090-419: The night. Following the termination of World War I in November 1918, the Second International was effectively relaunched and the question of whether the ILP should affiliate with this renewed Second International or with some other international grouping loomed large. The majority of ILP members saw the old Second International as hopelessly compromised by its support for the European bloodbath of 1914, and
6177-625: The number of delegates they can send proportionate to their size. Each year Congress elects a President of the Trades Union Congress , who carries out the office for the remainder of the year and then presides over the following year's conference. The TUC is not affiliated with the Labour Party . At election time the TUC cannot endorse a particular party by name. However it can point to policies that it believes would be positive for workers' rights , or to social cohesion and community welfare. It can also politically campaign against policies that it believes would be injurious to workers. The TUC also runs
6264-450: The organisation, the inaugural conference overwhelmingly accepted that the object of the party should be "to secure the collective and communal ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange ". The party's programme called for a range of progressive social reforms, including free "unsectarian" education "right up to the universities", the provision of medical treatment and school feeding programmes for children, housing reform,
6351-471: The party over the ILP's refusal to support the British war effort. Among those breaking ranks were George Nicoll Barnes , J. R. Clynes , James Parker , George Wardle and G. H. Roberts . Others held true to the party and its principles. Ramsay MacDonald, a committed pacifist, immediately resigned the chairmanship of the Labour Party in the House of Commons. Keir Hardie, Philip Snowden, W. C. Anderson , and
6438-616: The policy of deflation practised by the Treasury and the Bank of England. Trades Union Congress Social democracy Socialism Communism Northern Ireland Scotland Wales Other The Trades Union Congress ( TUC ) is a national trade union centre , a federation of trade unions that collectively represent most unionised workers in England and Wales . There are 48 affiliated unions with
6525-504: The progress of the movement". The conference also established the basic organisational structure of the new party. Annual Conferences, composed of delegates from each local unit of the organisation, were declared the "supreme and governing authority of the party". A Secretary was to be elected, to serve under the direct control of a central body known as the National Administrative Committee (NAC). This NAC
6612-528: The public as a competition, which David Du R Aberdeen won. From 1979 to the end of the 20th century, the TUC's membership declined from about 12 million to about 6.6 million. This took place during and after the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher , among other contributing factors. Frances O'Grady became elected to be the leader of the TUC in 2012. The TUC endorsed a remain vote at the 2016 European Union membership referendum , and O'Grady participated in
6699-556: The socialist intellectuals of the ILP, helped its constituent parts develop and grow. In contrast to the Orthodox Marxism of the SDF and its even more orthodox offshoots like the Socialist Labour Party and the Socialist Party of Great Britain , the ILP had a loose and inspirational flavour that made it relatively more easy to attract newcomers. Victor Grayson recalled a 1906 campaign in the Colne Valley which he
6786-513: The trade unions was also problematic. In the 1890s the ILP was lacking in alliances with the trade union organisations. Individual rank and file trade unionists could be persuaded to join the party out of a political commitment shaped by their industrial experiences, but connection with top leaderships was lacking. The ILP played a central role in the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, and when
6873-498: The world through the rose-coloured spectacles of a peaceful middle-class life. Disturbed in their peaceful trading with the representatives of the bourgeoisie by the revolutionary strivings of the proletariat they were the convinced enemies of the revolutionary aims of the proletariat. The ECCI instead made its appeal directly to "the communists of the Independent Labour Party", noting that "the revolutionary forces of England are split up" and urging them to unite with communist members of
6960-530: Was built. It was proposed at the 1944 Congress in Blackpool as a tribute to the lives of trade unionists that were lost in World War II . The idea was quickly expanded on to include conference and meeting facilities now known as Congress Centre. The building was also seen as an opportunity to raise interest in arts and culture, architecture in particular and the chance to design the building was left open to
7047-420: Was defeated by a large margin by a counterproposal reaffirming the name "Independent Labour Party", moved by the logic that there were large numbers of workers not yet prepared to formally accept the doctrine of socialism who would nonetheless be willing to join and work for an organisation "established for the purpose of obtaining the independent representation of labour". Despite the apparent timidity in naming
7134-454: Was elected as its first chairman. About 130 delegates were in attendance at the conference, including, in addition to Hardie, such socialist and labour worthies as Alderman Ben Tillett , author George Bernard Shaw , and Edward Aveling , partner of Karl Marx 's daughter Eleanor and translator of his Das Kapital . Some 91 local branches of the Independent Labour Party were represented, joined by 11 local Fabian Societies , four branches of
7221-497: Was in turn to be made up of regionally appointed delegates who were in theory confined to act according to the instructions given them by branch conferences. The new party was founded in a social environment of great hope and expectation. However, the first few years were difficult. The direction of the party, its leadership and organisation were heavily contested and the expected electoral progress did not emerge. The party did not fare well in its first major test of national support,
7308-529: Was involved in were Irish Voice on Vietnam, Reform (against corporal punishment in schools), anti-drug campaigns, and the Prisoners rights organisation (PRO) which she founded along with Gerry O'Callaghan and future Labour TD Joe Costello . During the 1960s and early 1970s Gaj was a member of the Irish Labour Party , but was considered to be on the radical left of the party. Gaj took pride when
7395-491: Was not profitable enough to survive in 1950s rural Wicklow, and the Gajs thereafter relocated to the more cosmopolitan Dublin. The Gajs set up a restaurant initially in Molesworth Street but then relocated to Baggot Street: As Margaret Gaj increased her political activism during the 1960s and 1970s, the restaurant became famous as a meeting place for Irish left-wing activists. In the 1960s Margaret became involved in
7482-594: Was proud to have conducted "like a religious revival," without reference to specific political problems. Future party chairman Fenner Brockway later recounted the revivalist mood of the gatherings of his local ILP branch gathering in 1907: "On Sunday nights a meeting was conducted rather on the lines of the Labour Church Movement —we had a small voluntary orchestra, sang Labour songs and the speeches were mostly Socialist evangelism , emotion in denunciation of injustice, visionary in their anticipation of
7569-417: Was the "Living Wage" policy, which sought to impose high minimum wages across all industries and nationalize all private enterprises which could not afford to pay them in order to resolve interwar unemployment and poverty , which it held to be caused by underconsumption . Increasing the unemployment allowance and switching to bulk purchasing were to be done in the conventional way, but the method of paying
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