In the wake of Labour’s election defeat in 2010 and Ed Miliband’s victory over his brother in the subsequent leadership contest, political philosophy was in vogue in the party. By mid-2012, political theorists and moral philosophers were addressing Labour Party conferences and most of the party’s MPs had contributed to at least one pamphlet or book pushing a vision of renewal for the party.

None of these efforts produced a Labour government, at least not in the short term. They were swept aside by Jeremy Corbyn’s ascension to leadership and his dominance of Labour until defeat in 2019. But one of these traditions has risen to the top of the Labour Party and now characterises its approach to government: Blue Labour.

Blue Labour was founded in April 2009 by the academic and political theorist, Maurice Glasman. A campaign group promoting a culturally and socially conservative, but economically left-wing, form of politics within the Labour Party, Blue Labour’s central argument was that the Labour Party had lost touch with the working classes, both in terms of its values and its policies.

Lord Glasman, who was made a Labour peer in 2011, was a close advisor of Ed Miliband in his early years as Leader of the Opposition. He articulated his vision of a more socially conservative Labour politics through a series of columns and seminars, but the defining Blue Labour tome of Ed Miliband’s leadership was The Purple Book. Published by the Blairite group Progress, The Purple Book featured essays by some of Labour’s most senior current MPs, including the now-Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and had a foreword written by Mr Miliband himself.

Read more by Mark McGeoghegan

Blue Labour’s revival........

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