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| General Secretary of the Labour Party | |
|---|---|
since 17 September 2024 | |
| Labour Party | |
| Nominator | National Executive Committee of the Labour Party |
| Appointer | Labour Party Conference |
| Formation | 1900 |
| First holder | Ramsay MacDonald |
TheGeneral Secretary of the Labour Party is the most senior employee of the BritishLabour Party, and acts as the non-voting secretary to theNational Executive Committee. When there is a vacancy the National Executive Committee selects a provisional replacement, subject to approval at the subsequentparty conference.
Hollie Ridley currently holds the post.
The General Secretary heads a staff of around 200 in their two head offices, one inLondon (formerly Southside, until October 2022) and Labour Central inNewcastle upon Tyne, and in the many local offices around the country. TheScottish andWelsh Labour Parties are headed by their general secretaries, de facto subordinate to the national general secretary.
The General Secretary is responsible for employing staff, developing campaign and media strategies, running the party's organisational, constitutional, and policy committees, organising the Party Conference, liaising with theSocialist International andParty of European Socialists, ensuring legal and constitutional propriety, and preparing literature.
The General Secretary also acts as theRegistered Treasurer under thePolitical Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, responsible for preparing accurate financial statements.[1]
As the Labour Party is anunincorporated association without aseparate legal personality,[2] the General Secretary represents the party on behalf of the other members of the Labour Party in any legal matters or actions.[3][4]
The post of Party Secretary was created in 1900 at the birth of the Labour Party. The first holder of that position wasRamsay MacDonald, later Prime Minister. In these early years, the post was very important, effectively leading the party outside Parliament. MacDonald and his successor,Arthur Henderson, were both Members of Parliament and, for a period, were both Chairmen of theParliamentary Labour Party] while Party Secretary.
Upon Henderson's retirement in 1934, after the 1931 debacle which had seen MacDonald expelled from the party, it was decided that the position should be separated from the parliamentary party, and power should not be concentrated in the hands of one person. Therefore, Henderson's successor would not be allowed to become a Member of Parliament. This ruled out the strongest contender,Herbert Morrison, and others with parliamentary ambitions. Finally,Jimmy Middleton, assistant secretary since 1903, was chosen. He was a quiet-spoken man and the job lost much of its previous importance. However, theNational Executive Committee grew in influence.
DuringWorld War II,Morgan Phillips became General Secretary and went on to oversee two general election victories. A Welshman, he had been a miner but was instrumental in widening Labour's appeal to the middle classes. He also built a professional Party, with key employees working on policy development and electoral organisation.
WhenLen Williams, the General Secretary of the earlyWilson years, retired in 1968, he was expected to be replaced by someone younger who could transform the party and lead it to a third successive victory. However, the party choseHarry Nicholas, a long-serving left-wingT&G union figure who would be unlikely to continue to renew and reinvigorate the party. The party lost the1970 general election.
The 1970s and early 1980s saw developing confrontations between the left and the right in the party.Jim Mortimer andLarry Whitty worked hard to keep the party together after the formation of theSocial Democratic Party and the rise of theMilitant tendency. Whitty oversaw the reforms ofNeil Kinnock and stayed on until the election ofTony Blair as Leader. It would beTom Sawyer who would put in place Blair'sNew Labour reforms, with the creation of theNational Policy Forum, the change toClause IV and the perceived erosion of the power of grassroots members. He opened new offices inMillbank and created a highly professional, media-savvy, youthful staff and Party that worked for Labour's landslide victory in the1997 general election.
Crucial to this period was the transformation of the party apparatus from an alternative centre of power to the parliamentary leadership (largely a product of the 1970s when the party conference repeatedly disowned government policy), to being more congruent with the leadership's ideas for progress.The roots of the transformation probably date back to the appointment ofPeter Mandelson as the party's communication director in 1985, but under Blair (and Sawyer) rapidly accelerated.
Margaret McDonagh became Labour's first Permanent female General Secretary in 1998. She had been a rising star and formidable organiser in the run-up to 1997, seen as the key party official responsible for the record landslide victory, but her fearsome style did not endear her to Party members and the left. Her handling of the candidate selection for the2000 London mayoral election badly damaged her reputation. However, her formidable organisational skills contributed to asecond victory in 2001. McDonagh left after the 2001 general election victory and was succeeded byDavid Triesman. The party moved in 2004 to appointMatt Carter as the youngest-ever General Secretary. He resigned after less than two years following the less than convincing2005 general election victory and was replaced in January 2006 byPeter Watt. Watt became embroiled in thefunding scandals of 2007 and resigned soon after.
In early 2008David Pitt-Watson, a keyGordon Brown ally, was selected for the post under the banner of party finance reform, but never took up the post "for legal and financial reasons". The poor state of the party's finances following the decision by the leadership of the party to finance the General Election campaign in 2005 with loans meant that the auditors of the party had to inform him that his wealth, after a career partly in the City of London, would be at risk if the party did become bankrupt.[4][5][6]Ray Collins was appointed in 2008, and was succeeded byIain McNicol in 2011. McNicol resigned from the post in early 2018, citing a desire to "pursue new challenges".[7] On 20 March 2018,Jennie Formby was appointed as the General Secretary effective from April 2018.[8][9] She resigned on 4 May 2020, following the election ofKeir Starmer as new Labour leader, saying "now we have a new leadership team it is the right time to step down".[10]
