On The Changes Of Local Organizations Of Labour Party In UK

Local parties are the roots extended by political parties to society.They build local support for the party.Their status and characteristics will reflect and influence parties' ideas and decide parties' prospect.This is the same for all the parties.Britain is the cradle of party politics and local parties.As an up-and-coming youngster among british parties,The Labour Party grew up rapidly with its organizational advantage,lead the organization reform and have many experience and lessons.So it is meaningful to study the change of local labour parties.From the late 19^th to the early 20^th,the local labour parties began to form.In the late 19^th,trade unions and the new-born socialist societies had their own local branch,which committed to campaign and propaganda work,formed the base of local Labour parties.After the foundation of Labour party, more trade unions were affiliated and the national party paid more attention to organization.As a result,the local Labour parties came into being and its function of campaigning was strengthened. However,it is the local branches of trade unions and socialist societies which dominated the local Labour parties,and the affiliated members rather than individual members who were included in the local Labour.On the whole,the local Labour parties were fragmented,lapped and restricted the Labour party's development.The First World War changed british political life and Labour party's fortune too.The Liberal party declined quickly.Trade union was strengthened.The war hastened the election reform and universal suffrage was realized.In front of the opportunity,the Labour party reorganized its structure in order to transform into a modern party and came into power.The local Labour party were transformed too:local Labour parties were established in every constituency and were founded on the ward associations;individual members were absorbed to extend party's social base;formal communication systems were formed between the national party and local parties;the function of local Labour party in campaigning was reinforced obviously,other functions also developed between the elections,such as recruiting members,collecting fees,educating members,and holding social activities;the inner local Labour parties became the centre of community's political and social life. The transformation of local Labour contributed to Labour party's replacement of Liberal party as the second party.The Second World War changed social mind profoundly.More and more people supported Labour party's welfare state and state intervention so that Labour party can win the overwhelming victory in the 1945 election and then carry out welfare and nationalization policy.In the aftermath of the radicalism,the membership of Labour party increased dramatically,the activity of local Labour party increased relatively,and provided public services for community.But then,this relative prosperous vision changed in fifty,when labour party had problems in government,cleavage inside party was broadened,and the Conservative party revived again.As a result,the membership of labour party began to decreased,the political function of local labour party weakened,and the trade union alienated local labour party.All of this weakened the labour party's priority in elections.Although the labour party set up a special committee to examine the constituency party,it has no effect.After 1960,the change of british society accelerated.The economy ran into troubles.The change of industry and social structure speed up,the working class declined and middle class was espanded, the core electorate of labour party decreased too.Meanwhile,the interest groups and new social movement rised and the mass media had been used in party activity much more.The social change lashed the party politics.The labour party governments in late sixty and seventy couldn't deal with the economic crisis because of the bind of trade union and lost many supporters.The Conservative party abandoned common understanding of governance and turned to Thatcherism.All of this had great impact on local labour party.The membership of Labour party decreased.The function of local labour party changed because the development of the mass media.The function of local labour party in maintaining the party organization such as recruiting members and holding meetings had declined,but increased in local government involvement.Meanwhile,many local labour parties controlled by leftists,who demanded to weaken the power of leadership and parliamentary caucus and promoted local socialism opposite to Thatcherism.The reform of Kinnock and Smith focused on restoring the leadership's authority,pressing the hard left,expanding the individual member's right,adjusting the relationship between labour party and trade union.The reform was extended to local level,including:recruiting members,although yielding no results;weakening the power of local labor party in candidate selection and decision; renewing the General Management Committee of constituency party and endowing the individual member with right through "one member,one vote" in order to weaken the influence of trade union and activists.These measures were helpful to press the hard left and improve labour party's image. But a thorough reform was needed to revive labour party.In 1994,when Blair led the party,he reformed labour party drastically in order to make a "New Labour party,New Britain".In order to weaken the class nature and shape a catch-all party,he recruited members so energetically that the individual membership increased greatly.He also reformed the policy-making systems to restrict the power of local labour party.Besides,he went far to alienate trade union and remove the dominance of trade unions.His reform was so successful that Labour party got an overwhelming victory in 1997 election and came into power until now.However,the organizational advantage of labour party began to weaken because of neglect of organization,some unpopular policies and influence from outside. The membership had decreased continually and the activism of member's participation declined too.On the whole,local labour party has changed in many respects.Its function has changed from singleness,weakness to diversity,specialization.Its structure has changed from depending on trade unions to breaking away from them,from roughness to fineness.Its composition has changed from exclusivity to openness,from homogenization to heterogeneity.As for the relationship with national party,although the intra democracy has expanded gradually,the center of power has inclined to central party.The causes of these changes are the changes of political system and social structure,the development of mass media and the performance of labour governmentDespite the situation of countries are different,the change of local labour parties in Britain can provide many enlightenment and lessons to other parties,such as expanding the members' democracy rights,fulfilling the "involvement" need of local parties,strengthening the communication between parties and citizens,establishing an idea of changing with times.