Clause IV

Helping orphans the way you would do it

Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution sets out the objects of the Party, and has been the scene of political fights over its direction.

The original version of Clause IV, drafted in 1918 by Sidney Webb, read, in part:

"4. To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."

This text is usually assumed to mean nationalization of the whole economy, but close reading of the text shows that there are many other possible interpretations. Common Ownership could mean Municipal Ownership, Workers Cooperatives or Consumer Cooperatives. Many would also include the John Lewis Partnership as a company in common ownership. The phrase has to mean something which would be seen by traditionalists as Socialist.

After losing the 1959 general election, Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell came to believe that opposition to nationalization had led to the party's poor performance, and announced that he proposed to amend Clause IV. The left fought back and managed to defeat any change; symbolically it was then agreed to include Clause IV part 4 on Labour Party membership cards.

Tony Blair announced at the conclusion of his 1994 conference speech that the Labour Party needed a new statement of aims and values, and that he would draw one up and present it to the Party. The new version was adopted at a Special Conference at Easter 1995.

The present version reads:

"The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few. Where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe. And where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect."

This should mean that new Labour is pledged to introduce measures of redistribution of income. Although the Labour government has introduced a number of mildly redistributive measures such as the Working Families Tax Credit, they have not made redistribution a major plank of their policies, disappointing many of those on the party's left.

Clause Four was also the name of a campaigning group within the Labour Party's student wing, which succeeded in ending its control by the Militant Tendency in 1974.