View source for Labour Co-ordinating Committee

The '''Labour Co-ordinating Committee''' ('''LCC''') was a faction in the British [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]], established in 1978 and wound-up in 1998. It moved from a group established to challenge the leadership of the party from the left to the vanguard of [[Tony Blair]]'s drive to modernise the party's organisation and policies.<ref>Labour Co-ordinating Committee, 1981 - 1985-09, GBR/0014/KNNK 2/1/53. Churchill Archives Centre. <nowiki>https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/9/archival_objects/454075</nowiki> Accessed May 13, 2024.</ref>

The LCC was established in 1978 to co-ordinate the efforts of the Labour left. As such it was extremely broad including, for instance, members of the [[Campaign for Labour Party Democracy]], [[Labour Briefing]], and the fiercely anti-[[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] [[National Organisation of Labour Students]] (NOLS).

In 1981, the LCC supported the campaign of [[Tony Benn]] against [[Denis Healey]] for the deputy leadership of the party, but many were deeply unhappy with Benn's campaign and approach and the LCC began to evolve into a body aiming to rescue the party from the mess it found itself in as the [[SDP (UK)|SDP]] split and Benn's campaign imprinted an image of extremism in the minds of the voters.

The anti-Trotskyism of NOLS was central to this period as they were able to successfully outmanoeuvre the [[Far-left politics|far-left]] groups, having developed their skills in the bitter struggle of the [[Clause Four Group]] with [[Militant (Trotskyist group)|Militant]] in the student movement.

In 1983, the LCC organised a conference, After the Landslide, to examine the lessons from the party's catastrophic defeat of that year: the tone the conference set, that organisational and political modernisation and change were essential, was to become the dominant theme in the party's internal life in the following decade. [[Robin Cook]] became the LCC's principal voice in parliament and [[Peter Hain]] was a prominent voice outside Westminster. [[Cherie Booth]] was also an active member, serving on the LCC executive. [[Harriet Harman]] was also a key member. 

Under [[Neil Kinnock]]'s leadership the LCC became fully engaged in the struggle against Militant and the LCC was broadly supportive of the leadership, though it backed [[John Prescott]]'s unsuccessful 1988 challenge to deputy leader [[Roy Hattersley]].

The defeat of Militant left the group without a real cause and membership began to decline, although it sponsored the launch of a new discussion journal, ''[[Renewal (journal)|Renewal]]'', in 1993 and firmly repositioned itself as a group of modernisers rather than on the [[soft left]].

In 1998, with [[New Labour]] now in power, the LCC voted to wind itself up.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1521418/The-full-text-of-Tony-Blairs-letter-to-Michael-Foot-written-in-July-1982.html The full text of Tony Blair's letter to Michael Foot written in July 1982]

[[Category:Labour Party (UK) factions]]
[[Category:New Labour]]

{{UK Labour Party}}
{{New Labour}}