Why was the Labour Representation Committee formed in 1900?

        Throughout the 1800s Britain went through the 'Great Depression' as it was called. The Working Class felt it worst with mass unemployment and deflation. The Great Depression was the fault of the Upper Classes hording produce as there was no one to sell it to since the product had been over manufactured. The Working Class were producing much more than they were being payed for and thus the manufacturer had to cease production as too much had been produced and thus there was mass unemployment. This caused massive unemployment riots and many other forms of protest such as smashing machinery which sped up production. This imbalance of wealth was a huge problem and the working class began to become dissolusioned with the government, who could do nothing to slow down the depression. Some members of the working class began to rebel against the Liberals and Tories and look for alternatives; those were Socialist groups and the ILP. Alone these groups did not get enough support or have enough power to take any action and thus it was within their interests to unite on common grounds in order to have power enough to make action, and thus at the meeting in February 1900 this principle was agreed upon and the socialist groups and the trade unions aswell united to form the LRC.

        Trade Unions were the only bodies that could gain the Working Class better working conditions and thus they had massive support from the workers. The Trade Unions were mostly operated by Liberal leaders and thus support was thrown from Trade Unions towards the Liberal Party at election time. The TUC was mostly governed by Liberals and thus it is surprising to find that the TUC brought about the creation of the LRC (the party that would later take the dominant position of the Liberal Party). Trade Union support was something the LRC would need to gain a majority in the House of Commons and thus it was a favourable turn of fate that some New Unionists emerged as Unions opposed to the Liberal Party as it was not doing enough to improve the conditions of the working class. New Unionism spread but did not dominate the Union scene but it certainly did help to turn working class favour toward the LRC at it's creation. On the opposite face of the coin the creation of the LRC was most favourable to the New Unions as it promised more than the Liberal Party and thus many Unions were drawn to the cause of Labour ensuing it's creation.

        In 1893 the ILP (Independant Labour Party) was set up by such key figures as Keir Hardie (first working class MP), James Ramsay MacDonald (first Labour Prime Minister) and Phillip Snowdon (first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequor). The ILP was the first try at uniting political interests into a Labour orientated political party but it was small and had no support in it's days before 1900. Keir Hardie was a big name in Scottish Trade Unionism and helped to push things forward in other ways than just the creation of the ILP. The ILP was significant in that it was Keir Hardie who approached the TUC and helped to bring about the fateful meeting of minds. The ILP made up alot of the important people in the formation of the LRC and it was partly due to Keir Hardie's speaches at the meeting in Memorial Hall that the LRC was created. Perhaps if the ILP was not already a united body then the LRC might never have been created but the fact that so many groups similar to the ILP were brought together was one that changed the fate of the ILP and the LRC.

        The reason the LRC was so easy to form was that groups with similar interest already existed. Socialist party became popular once again in the late 1800s and three main groups were formed all with very similar beliefs. The SDF (Socialist Democratic Federation) was perhaps the most important. The SDF was a Marxist socialist party led by Henry Hyndman, its beliefs formed by his own anti-Liberalism. The SDF later has support from leading socialists such as Eleanor Marx (Karl Marx's daughter) and William Morris (founder of the Socialist League). William Morris left the SDF because of personal differenced with Henry Hyndman and formed the less eccentric Socialist League; the Socialist League wanted to promote government reform towards a socialist Britain as opposed to a full blown Marxist revolution. The Fabian Society were and anti-capitalist anti-marxist socialist movement which believed that they could slowly reform British government to their own version of toned down socialism. All three groups contributed individually to the battle against Liberalism and Conservativism and united opinion against the governments in small groups. It wasn't until the groups had joined in the LRC that they had real power but they were still a monument to the mounted political opposition to the present system and also a catalyst in the formation of a Labour/Socialist/Trade Unionist political party.

        Through discussion the various focal points that have been documented by historians, the general concensus seems to be that the most important reason that why the Labour Party was not formed before, and was formed in 1900 was that there was mounting discontent with present governments and that the opportunity (the franchise increased to the working class) was now there for a Labour Party to be successful. The LRC might not have been formed without all the other reasons discussed but, for sure, the franchise that was previously limited, being opened, made the biggest change in British politics and British society in the past 200 years.