The Labour Co-ordinating Committee (LCC) was a faction in the British
Labour Party, established in 1978 and wound-up in 1998. It moved from a group established to challenge the leadership of the party from the left to the vanguard of
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of the ...
's drive to modernise the party's organisation and policies.
The LCC was established in 1978 to co-ordinate the efforts of the Labour left. As such it was extremely broad including, for instance, members of the
Campaign for Labour Party Democracy,
Labour Briefing
''Labour Briefing'' is a monthly political magazine produced by members of the British Labour Party.
History and profile
The magazine began in 1980 as ''London Labour Briefing''. The founders were the members of the Chartist Minority Tendency, ...
, and the fiercely anti-
Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...
National Organisation of Labour Students (NOLS).
In 1981, the LCC supported the campaign of
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, ...
against
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey, (30 August 1917 – 3 October 2015) was a British Labour politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970; he remains the longe ...
for the deputy leadership of the party, but many were deeply unhappy with Benn's campaign and approach and the LCC began to evolve into a body aiming to rescue the party from the mess it found itself in as the
SDP split and Benn's campaign imprinted an image of extremism in the minds of the voters.
The anti-Trotskyism of NOLS was central to this period as they were able to successfully outmanoeuvre the
far-left
Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single definition. Some scholars consider ...
groups, having developed their skills in the bitter struggle of the
Clause Four Group with
Militant
The English word ''militant'' is both an adjective and a noun, and it is generally used to mean vigorously active, combative and/or aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant reformers". It comes from the 15th century Latin " ...
in the student movement.
In 1983, the LCC organised a conference, After the Landslide, to examine the lessons from the party's catastrophic defeat of that year: the tone the conference set, that organisational and political modernisation and change were essential, was to become the dominant theme in the party's internal life in the following decade.
Robin Cook
Robert Finlayson "Robin" Cook (28 February 19466 August 2005) was a British Labour politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 until his death in 2005 and served in the Cabinet as Foreign Secretary from 1997 until 2001 wh ...
became the LCC's principal voice in parliament and
Peter Hain
Peter Gerald Hain, Baron Hain (born 16 February 1950), is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2005 to 2007, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2007 to 2008 and twice as Secretary of Stat ...
was a prominent voice outside Westminster.
Cherie Booth was also an active member, serving on the LCC executive.
Harriet Harman
Harriet Ruth Harman (born 30 July 1950) is a British politician and solicitor who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Camberwell and Peckham, formerly Peckham, since 1982. A member of the Labour Party, she has served in various Ca ...
was also a key member.
Under
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader ...
's leadership the LCC became fully engaged in the struggle against Militant and the LCC was broadly supportive of the leadership, though it backed
John Prescott
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (born 31 May 1938) is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he w ...
's unsuccessful 1988 challenge to deputy leader
Roy Hattersley
Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley, (born 28 December 1932) is a British Labour Party politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He was MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook for over 32 years from 1964 to 1997, and served as Deput ...
.
The defeat of Militant left the group without a real cause and membership began to decline, although it sponsored the launch of a new discussion journal, ''
Renewal'', in 1993 and firmly repositioned itself as a group of modernisers rather than on the
soft left.
In 1998, with
New Labour
New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...
now in power, the LCC voted to wind itself up.
External links
The full text of Tony Blair's letter to Michael Foot written in July 1982
Labour Party (UK) factions
New Labour
{{New Labour