The rise o the labour party was due to many factors.

Factors such as the movement of

people from the countryside to cities which changed the economic structure of Britain and also
changed the social structure and this led to the need for political change.

The need for political change to help the working class people who were living in
poverty which had been highlighted by booth and Rownatree who surveyed London an York
two of England’s major cities .Better education led to the realization that the two existing political
parties were not suitable for the working class' needs .All were factors which contributed to the
rise of the labour party .

The British government was run mainly by rich aristocrats because working class people could
not afford to become MPs but in 1911 they introduced payment for MPs which let the working
class represent themselves in their constituencies in parliament either the liberal or conservative
parties .Although this had happened the rich aristocracy still believed that they knew best when
dealing with the poor even though they did nothing to help the poor .This attitude was based
partly on the principle of laissez fair which meant little help was given to the poor and the little
help that was given was harsh like the poor houses .These factors needed to be changed and
the only way was through political change this also lead to the rise of the labour party .

Another reason for the rise of the labour party was the failure of the 1832 act which granted the
vote to small business men , financiers and entrepreneurs of the industrial revolution but
ignored the organised sections of working class. Although the 1832 act failed to grant working
class people the vote the 1867 , 1872 and 1884 acts gave the vote to more working class
people , although this had happened the new voters did not have a party to represent them
.These problems also helped the rise of the labour party through the necessity of a party to
represent the working class .

The skilled working class organised themselves into model unions which protected their
members interests this showed that through organisation the rich could be forced the relive
some of the bad conditions .The growth of the new unions and also their success like the match
girls and dockers showed that even the poorest working class people could win against the
upper class and this led to the potential of the same being achieved on political terms .These
situations showed that working class people could organise and win.

Groups like the chartists and TU's helped the rise of the labour party through the contribution of
ideas from the chartists and organizational skills from the TU's. All of these contributions were
put into action by Kerr Hardie who founded the independent labour party which was intended to
get social changes which pointed in a socialist direction.

In 1900 the labour representation committee which was set up which was a distinct labour group
in parliament and was a product of a conference in which the ILP , Fabian society and SDF all
came to a decision of how socialist the party should be .The parties main aim was "legislate in
the interests of the working class"
 In 1924 Ramsey MacDonald became the first Labour party Prime Minister. How did a
movement, which was started less than three decades earlier to support working-class people
and values, evolve into a mainstream political party?
Labour Party chronology - the basics

The first Labour Prime Minister - Ramsey MacDonald.

1893 - Keir Hardie, a Scottish miner who had been elected MP for West Ham, set up the
Independent Labour Party - a socialist propaganda society.
1900 - the Trades Union Congress set up the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) - with
Ramsey MacDonald as secretary - to support working-class candidates in elections.
1903 - the LRC agreed with the Liberal Party that only one candidate (Liberal or Labour) should
stand in each seat against the Conservatives in the next election.
1906 - 29 LRC-sponsored candidates won seats in the election and set up as a separate party
in Parliament. They called themselves The Labour Party. One Labour MP - John Burns - was
invited by the Liberal government to join the Cabinet the first Labour minister.
1910 - 42 Labour MPs were elected, and the Liberal government needed the Labour Party to
support it.
1914-1918 - during the war, the Party struggled, because Labour members disagreed about
whether to oppose or support the war.
1918 - the Party reorganised itself, adopted a new constitution and published a manifesto -
Labour and the New Social Order - which advocated nationalisation of industry and the
redistribution of wealth. The Labour Party won 63 seats in the 1918 election.
1922 - the Labour Party won 142 seats in the election.
1924 - in the election the Conservatives won 258 seats, Labour 191 and the Liberals 158.
Labour and the Liberals formed a coalition government with Ramsey MacDonald as the first
Labour prime minister.