The Liberal–Labour movement was the practice of local Liberal associations accepting and supporting candidates who were financially maintained by

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

s. These candidates stood for the

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of ...

with the aim of representing the

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

es, while remaining supportive of the Liberal Party in general. The first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was

George Odger George Odger (1813 – 4 March 1877) was a pioneer British trade unionist and radical politician. He is best remembered as the head of the London Trades Council during the period of formation of the Trades Union Congress and as the first Presid ...

in the 1870 Southwark by-election. The first Lib–Lab candidates to be elected were Alexander MacDonald and

Thomas Burt Thomas Burt Privy Council (United Kingdom), PC (12 November 1837 – 12 April 1922) was a British trade unionist and one of the first working-class Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Members of Parliament. Career Burt became secretary of t ...

, both members of the

Miners' Federation of Great Britain The Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) was established after a meeting of local mining trade unions in Newport, Wales, Newport, Wales in 1888. The federation was formed to represent and co-ordinate the affairs of local and regional miners' ...

(MFGB), in the 1874 general election. In

1880 Events January *January 27 – Thomas Edison is granted a patent for the incandescent light bulb. Edison filed for a US patent for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected ... to platina contact wires." gr ...

, they were joined by

Henry Broadhurst :''See also Harry Broadhurst'' Henry Broadhurst (13 April 1840 – 11 October 1911) was a leading early British trade unionist and a Lib-Lab politician who sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons for various Midla ...

of the Operative Society of Masons and the movement reached its peak in 1885, with twelve MPs elected. These include William Abraham (Mabon) in the Rhondda division whose claims to the Liberal nomination were essentially based on his working class credentials. The candidates generally stood with the support of the Liberal Party, the Labour Representation League and one or more

s. After 1885, decline set in. Disillusion grew from the defeat of the Manningham Mills Strike, a series of decisions restricting the activity of unions, culminating in the

Taff Vale Case ''Taff Vale Railway Co v Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants'' [1901UKHL 1 commonly known as the ''Taff Vale case'', is a formative case in UK labour law. It held that, at common law, Trade union, unions could be liable for loss of profits t ...

and largely unchallenged by the Liberal Party, and the foundation of the Independent Labour Party in 1893 followed by its turn towards trade unionism. The formation of the British Labour Party#Labour Representation Committee (1900–1906), Labour Representation Committee in 1900, followed by the Labour Party in 1906, meant that in the House of Commons, there were two groups of MPs containing trade union–sponsored MPs, sitting on either side of the chamber (about 28 took the Labour whip and about 23 took the Liberal whip). The Trades Union Congress decided to instruct its affiliate unions to require their MPs to stand at the next election as Labour Party candidates and take the Labour whip. Of the 23 trade union–sponsored Liberal MPs, 15 were sponsored by unions affiliated to the Miners Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). When the MFGB affiliated to the Labour Party in 1909, most of their MPs joined Labour after the January 1910 general election. The Liberal-Labour group finally died out at the 1918 general election, when

(by then Father of the House) and Arthur Richardson stood down.

List of Liberal-Labour MPs

References

{{reflist Politics of the United Kingdom History of the Liberal Party (UK) History of the Labour Party (UK)