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New Labour is the political philosophy that dominated the history of the British Labour Party from the mid-late 1990s to 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The term originated in a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen in a draft manifesto which was published in 1996 and titled New Labour, New Life for Britain. It was presented as the brand of a newly reformed party that had altered the old Clause IV (which stressed nationalisation) and instead endorsed market economics. The branding was extensively used while the party was in government between 1997 and 2010. New Labour was influenced by the political thinking of Anthony Crosland and the leadership of Blair and Brown as well as Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell's media campaigning. The political philosophy of New Labour was influenced by the party's development of Anthony Giddens' Third Way which attempted to provide a synthesis between capitalism and socialism. The party emphasised the importance of social justice, rather than equality, emphasising the need for equal opportunity and believed in the use of markets to deliver economic efficiency and social justice.
The New Labour brand was developed to regain trust from the electorate and to portray a departure from the party's traditional socialist policies, thereby communicating the party's modernisation to the public. However, it was criticised for its breaking of election promises and of loosening its links to the . Calls for modernisation had become prominent following Labour's heavy defeat in the 1983 general election, with the new Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, who came from the party's soft left Tribune Group of Labour MPs, calling for a review of policies that led to the party's defeat, and for improvements to the party's public image to be made by Peter Mandelson, a former television producer. Following the leaderships of Neil Kinnock and John Smith, the party under Tony Blair attempted to widen its electoral appeal under the New Labour tagline and by the 1997 general election it had made significant gains in the middle class; resulting in a landslide victory. Labour maintained this wider support at the 2001 general election and won a third consecutive victory in the 2005 general election for the first time ever in the history of the Labour Party. However, the party's majority was significantly reduced from four years earlier.
In 2007, Blair resigned from the party leadership after thirteen years and was succeeded by his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Labour lost the 2010 general election which resulted in the first hung parliament in thirty-six years and led to the creation of a Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government. Brown resigned as Prime Minister and as Labour Party leader shortly thereafter. He was succeeded as party leader by Ed Miliband, who abandoned the New Labour branding and moved the party's political stance further to the left under the branding One Nation Labour. Jeremy Corbyn moved the party further to the left, while Keir Starmer has repositioned it back to the Centrism and won the 2024 general election; Starmer's leadership of the party has been widely compared to that of Blair, and he is regarded as having taken the party back to the centre-ground, in a similar way to that achieved by New Labour; however, Labour won significantly less votes and vote share in 2024 than they achieved in 2017 under Corbyn, and membership of the party has fallen under Starmer.
Gordon Brown, who went on to hold senior positions in Blair's Labour government before succeeding him as Prime Minister in June 2007, was not a candidate in the 1994 leadership election because of an agreement between the two made in 1994 in which Brown promised not to run for election. The media has since speculated that Blair agreed to stand down and allow Brown the premiership in the future, although Blair's supporters have contended that such a deal never took place. The term New Labour was coined by Blair in his October 1994 Labour Party Conference speech as part of the slogan "new Labour, new Britain".Driver & Martell 2006, p. 13. During this speech, Blair announced the modification of Clause IV of the party's constitution which abandoned Labour's attachment to nationalisation and embraced market economics. The new version of the clause committed Labour to a balance of market and public ownership and to balance creation of wealth with social justice.Driver & Martell 2006, pp. 13–14. Blair argued for increased modernisation at the conference, asserting that "parties that do not change die, and Labour is a living movement not a historical monument". During the period from 1994 to 1997, after Blair's election as party leader, Labour managed to reverse decades of decline in party membership by increasing the number by around 40%, increasing its capacity to compete for office whilst also legitimising the leadership of Blair.
In 1997, New Labour won a landslide victory at the general election after eighteen years of Conservative government, winning a total of 418 seats in the House of Commons—the largest victory in the party's history.Barlow & Mortimer 2008, p. 226. The party was also victorious in 2001 and 2005, making Blair Labour's longest-serving Prime Minister and the first to win three consecutive general elections. He was also the first Labour leader to win a general election since Harold Wilson in 1974.Else 2009, p. 48.
In the months following Labour's 1997 election victory, were held in Scotland and Wales regarding devolution. There was a clear majority supporting devolution in Scotland and a narrower majority in Wales—Scotland received a stronger degree of devolution than Wales. The Labour government passed laws in 1998 to establish a Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly and the first elections for these were held in 1999.Elliot, Faucher-King & Le Galès 2010, p. 65. Blair attempted to continue peace negotiations in Northern Ireland by offering the creation of a regional parliament and government. In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was made, allowing for a 108-member elected assembly and a power-sharing arrangement between nationalists and unionists. Blair was personally involved in these negotiations.Elliot, Faucher-King & Le Galès 2010, p. 69. The Fabian Society was a forum for New Labour ideas and for critical approaches from across the party. The most significant Fabian contribution to Labour's policy agenda in government was Ed Balls's 1992 pamphlet advocating Bank of England independence. In 1998, Blair and his New Labour government introduced the Human Rights Act. This was made to give UK law what the European convention of human rights had established. It was given the royal assent on the 9 November 1998, but it was not truly put in place until early October 2000.
After the United States strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Blair released a statement supporting the actions.Coats & Lawler 2000, p. 296. He lent military support to the United States' 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.Bérubé 2009, p. 206. In March 2003, the Labour government, fearing Saddam Hussein's alleged access to weapons of mass destruction, participated in the American-led invasion of Iraq.Lavelle 2008, p. 85. British intervention in Iraq promoted public protest. Crowds numbering 400,000 and more demonstrated in October 2002 and again the following spring. On 15 February 2003, over 1,000,000 people demonstrated against the war in Iraq and 60,000 marched in Manchester before the Labour Party conference, with the demonstrators' issues including British occupation of Afghanistan and the forthcoming invasion of Iraq.Elliot, Faucher-King & Le Galès 2010, p. 123.
In June 2007, Blair resigned as the leader of the Labour Party and Gordon Brown, previously the Chancellor of the Exchequer, succeeded him following the 2007 Labour Party conference. Three years earlier, Blair had announced that he would not be contesting a fourth successive general election as Labour Party leader if he won the 2005 general election. Brown initially had strong public support and plans for a quick general election were widely publicised, although they never were officially announced.Else 2008, p. 49. On 18 February 2008, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling announced that the failing bank Northern Rock would be nationalised, supporting it with loans and guarantees of £50,000,000,000. The bank had been destabilised by the subprime mortgage crisis the previous year in the United States and a private buyer of the bank could not be found.
The 2010 general election ended in a hung parliament in which Labour won 258 seats, 91 fewer than in 2005. Following failure to achieve a coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats, Brown announced his intention to resign as leader of the party on 10 May and resigned as the Prime Minister the following day. Shortly thereafter, David Cameron and Nick Clegg announced the formation of a coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Cameron became the Prime Minister and Clegg the Deputy Prime Minister of a cabinet that contained eighteen Conservative ministers and five Liberal Democrat ministers. In announcing his intention to run for the leadership, David Miliband declared that the New Labour era was over. Following the publication of Blair's memoirs on 1 September 2010, Ed Miliband said: "I think it is time to move on from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson and to move on from the New Labour establishment and that is the candidate that I am at this election who can best turn the page. I think frankly most members of the public will want us to turn the page". Ed Miliband won the leadership election and was able to mobilise support from the trade union electorate.Driver 2011, p. 110. In a July 2011 speech, Blair stated that New Labour died when he left office and Brown assumed the party leadership, claiming that from 2007 the party "lost the driving rhythm". Nonetheless, New Labour's Third Way influenced a range of centre-left political parties across the world.Giddens, Anthony (2001). The Global Third Way Debate. Polity Press. .
While the party was in power, press secretary Alastair Campbell installed a centralised organisation to co-ordinate government communication and impose a united message to be delivered by ministers. This process, known as "Millbankization" in reference to the campaign headquarters of Labour at the Millbank Tower, was strict but very effective. (2025). 9780333761007, Palgrave. ISBN 9780333761007 Charlie Whelan, Brown's press officer, was often in conflict with Campbell because of the former's attempts to brief the press by his own initiatives—this continued until his resignation in 1999. Campbell followed a professional approach to media relations to ensure that a clear message was presented and the party planned stories in advance to ensure a positive media reaction.Seldon 2007, p. 125. Campbell used his own experience in journalism as he was known for his attention to detail and effective use of . Campbell developed a relationship with News International, providing their newspapers with early information in return for positive media coverage.Seldon 2007, pp. 125–126.
In 2002, Philip Gould, a policy advisor to the Labour Party, wrote to the party's leadership that the brand had become contaminated and an object of criticism and ridicule, undermined by an apparent lack of conviction and integrity. The brand was weakened by internal disputes and the apparent failure to deal with issues.Newman & Verčič 2002, p. 50. This assessment was supported by Blair, who argued that the government needed to spend more time working on domestic affairs, develop a unifying strategy and create "eye-catching initiatives". Blair also announced the need to be more assertive in foreign affairs.Kettell 2006, pp. 44–45.
The leaders of New Labour therefore created and ran an efficient and calculated media-handling strategy in an effort to increase electoral success. Florence Faucher-King and Patrick Le Galés note that "by 2007 the party had been emptied of its capacities for intermediation with society and, in the space of 10 years, lost half of its membership. But it had become a formidable machine for winning elections". (2025). 9780804776219, Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804776219
Professors Geoffrey Evans, John Curtice and Pippa Norris of Strathclyde University published a paper considering the incidence of tactical voting in the 1997 general election. Their studies showed that tactical voting increased in 1997—there was a strong increase in anti-Conservative voting and a decrease in anti-Labour tactical voting. Political commentators Neal Lawson and Joe Cox wrote that tactical voting helped to provide New Labour with its majorities in 1997, 2001 and 2005, arguing that the party won because of public opposition to the Conservative Party. The party declared after its victory that it "won as New Labour and would govern as New Labour", but Cox and Lawson challenged this view, suggesting that the party won on account of public opposition to the Conservative Party.
Tony Blair served as Prime Minister, from 1997 to 2007.
In 2021, The Times reported that Mandelson had been advising Labour leader Keir Starmer on moving the party beyond Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and broadening its electoral appeal.
The prison population in 2005 rose to over 76,000, mostly owing to the increasing length of sentences. Following the September 11 attacks, the Labour government attempted to emphasise counter-terrorism measures. From 2002, the government followed policies aimed at reducing anti-social behaviour;Bochel & Defty 2007, p. 23. in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, New Labour introduced Anti-social behaviour orders.Squires 2008, p. 135. Under this Labour Government, the '7/7' bombings took place, the first Islamic suicide attack and most deadly since the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
According to Neather, who was present at closed meetings in 2000, a secret government report called for mass immigration to change Britain's cultural make-up and that "mass immigration was the way that the government was going to make the UK truly multicultural". Neather went on to say that "the policy was intended—even if this wasn't its main purpose—to rub the right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date". Neather later stated that his words had been twisted, saying: "The main goal was to allow in more migrant workers at a point when—hard as it is to imagine now—the booming economy was running up against skills shortages. ... Somehow this has become distorted by excitable Right-wing newspaper columnists into being a "plot" to make Britain multicultural. There was no plot".
In February 2011, the then Prime Minister David Cameron stated that the "doctrine of state multiculturalism" (promoted by the previous Labour government) had failed and will no longer be state policy. He stated that the United Kingdom needed a stronger national identity and signalled a tougher stance on groups promoting Islamist extremism. However, official statistics showed that European Union and non-European Union mass immigration, together with asylum seeker applications, all increased substantially during Cameron's term in office.
Warwick University politics lecturer Stephen Kettell criticised the behaviour of the leadership of New Labour and their use of threats in parliament such as overlooking promotions for MPs in order to maintain party support. While referring to the other parties in Westminster as well, he likened these MPs as "little more than docile lobby-fodder for their respective oligarchies".
Although close to New Labour and a key figure in the development of the Third Way, sociologist Anthony Giddens dissociated himself from many of the interpretations of the Third Way made in the sphere of day-to-day politics. For him, it was not a succumbing to neoliberalism or the dominance of capitalist markets.Giddens, Anthony (2000). The Third Way and its Critics. Polity Press, p. 32. . The point was to get beyond both market fundamentalism and traditional state socialism—to make the values of the centre-left count in a globalising world. He argued that "the regulation of financial markets is the single most pressing issue in the world economy" and that "global commitment to free trade depends upon effective regulation rather than dispenses with the need for it".Giddens, Anthony (1998). The Third Way; A Renewal of Social Democracy. Polity Press, pp. 148–49. . In 2002, Giddens listed problems facing the New Labour government, naming spin as the biggest failure because its damage to the party's image was difficult to rebound from. He also challenged the failure of the Millennium Dome project and Labour's inability to deal with irresponsible businesses. Giddens saw Labour's ability to marginalise the Conservative Party as a success as well its economic policy, welfare reform and certain aspects of education. Giddens criticised what he called Labour's "half-way houses", including the National Health Service and environmental and constitutional reform.
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