The main political influences on the development of the Labour Party’s attitudes towards international affairs

Abstract

The Labour Party was born out of domestic political discontent, and its policies – to a greater extent forged in opposition up until the 1940s – tended to reflect this. Because of these two factors, Labour’s foreign policy reflected the party itself, the beliefs and standpoints of the various groups that came together to create it, and the dynamics between them, rather than necessarily the external world and experience and appraisal of international affairs. This issue will form a recurring theme throughout the next two chapters, which chart the early the years of Labour foreign policy, showing how Labour’s foreign policy. It is worth briefly considering the main influences on, and groupings within, the Labour Party. This will, by necessity, be something of a cursory sketch, and it is worth remembering that conflicts over ideology and policy occurred within the different groupings almost as much as between them. Jupp points out that until 1918 the Labour Party was more of a movement than a party, ‘in the sense of having little central discipline and being bound together by an agreement to accept all ideological positions critical of existing society and postulated on social change through political action. It had not orthodoxy, unlike the European social-democratic parties.’