Since its formation, the Labour Party’s Foreign policy has been, to put it delicately, complex. In its early years, this complexity was evident in major splits over the First World War.

A sizeable minority led by the Independent Labour Party opposed the war. The official position became one of support, founded on a desire for national unity and opposition to German aggression.

At the time of the Party’s creation, the British Empire stretched across a
quarter of the globe and a quarter of the world’s people. Labour was born into imperialism.

During the Second World War, Labour joined Churchill’s coalition
government. After the war, it swept to election victory. The sacrifices of
working-class people and the ready example of the collective, arguably
socialist, national war effort drove forward an irresistible desire for change.

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There is another way. Labour must rediscover its founding principles

The 1945 Labour Government enacted the most widespread social change the country has ever seen, the creation of the NHS, the welfare state and the nationalisation of strategic sectors of the economy.

Abroad, the Party caught the post-war wind of change, enacting the
independence of India and........

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