Blue Labour is a British campaign group and political faction that seeks to promote blue-collar and culturally conservative values within the British Labour Party – particularly on immigration, crime, EDI and community spirit – while remaining committed to labour rights and left-wing economic policies. It seeks to represent what it considers a working-class approach to Labour politics. In Parliament, the faction is led by MP Dan Carden, who founded the Blue Labour parliamentary caucus of Labour MPs in 2025 along with Jonathan Brash, Jonathan Hinder, and David Smith. Its members include Connor Naismith, Margaret Mullane and Shabana Mahmood, who has served as Home Secretary since September 2025.
Launched in 2009 as a counter to New Labour, the Blue Labour movement first rose to prominence after Labour's defeat in the 2010 general election, in which for the first time the party received fewer working-class votes than it did middle-class votes. The movement has influenced a handful of Labour MPs and frontbenchers; founder Maurice Glasman served as a close ally to Ed Miliband during his early years as Leader of the Opposition, before himself becoming a life peer in the House of Lords. The movement has also seen a resurgence of interest after the loss of red wall seats in the 2019 general election.
Blue Labour argues that the party lost touch with its base by embracing anti-patriotism in the face of Brexit and by undermining solidarity in local communities through bureaucratic collectivism, social agendas, and neoliberal economics. It argues that whilst postwar Old Labour had become too uncritical of state power, New Labour far worsened this with an uncritical view of global markets as well. The group further advocates a switch to local and democratic community management and provision of services, rather than relying on a top-down welfare state which it sees as excessively bureaucratic. Economically it is described as a "movement keen on guild socialism and continental corporatism".
The Blue Labour position has been articulated in books such as Tangled Up in Blue (2011) by Rowenna Davis, Blue Labour: Forging a New Politics (2015) by Ian Geary and Adrian Pabst and Blue Labour: The Politics of the Common Good (2022) by Glasman himself. Additional elucidations on Blue Labour's ideas can be found in The Purple Book (2011) by Robert Philpot and Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class (2020) by Paul Embery. A number of commentators, including Adrian Pabst himself, have argued that, as leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer adopted significant elements of Blue Labour's analysis and policies.
History
Launch of the group The London Metropolitan University academic Maurice Glasman launched Blue Labour in April 2009 at a meeting in Conway Hall, Bloomsbury, where he defined it as "a deeply conservative socialism that places family, faith and work at the heart of a new politics of reciprocity, mutuality and solidarity". He called for an alternative to the post-1945 centralising approach of the Labour Party. The movement grew through a series of seminars held in University College, Oxford, and at London Metropolitan University in the aftermath of Labour's defeat in the 2010 general election.
Political analyst Bob Jessop described the movement as follows:
It has been suggested that the name Blue Labour arose in reaction to a comparable communitarian trend in the Conservative Party called Red Tory, and also to suggest a hint of sadness, nostalgia and loss. The philosophical basis of Blue Labour is a combination of Aristotelianism (especially the concept of virtue) with the critique of market society developed by the Hungarian economist Karl Polanyi.
2010s
Glasman was once described as former Labour leader Ed Miliband's "guru" by political commentator Matthew D'Ancona, who suggested that while the party may not adopt the full programme of Blue Labour (particularly its criticisms of consumerism and globalisation), the trend was helping "the Labour leader forge a language in which to express his championship of the NHS". Between 2010 and 2015, some commentators suggested that Blue Labour could be a potential alternative to David Cameron's Big Society, the "big idea" that might even "define Miliband's leadership".
The Conservative government of Boris Johnson changed policies toward Levelling Up the regions and raising working-class wages and skills partly by limiting migrant labour through Brexit, along with some more communitarian themes, and away from the small-state libertarian Singapore-on-Thames Brexit vision. Blue Labour reported an increase in followers after Johnson's 2019 general election victory.
2020s Labour leader Keir Starmer was also described as being influenced by Blue Labour and was praised as "a true conservative" by Glasman in an article on UnHerd. However, Glasman later became more critical of Starmer's leadership, warning him about the potential of Reform UK to take votes away from the Labour Party.
In June 2024, Maurice Glasman, Jon Cruddas and Jonathan Rutherford launched a "Future of the Left" project at the conservative think tank Policy Exchange.
Speaking at the Postliberalism Conference in December 2024, Maurice Glasman celebrated the victory of Donald Trump, which he said was "world historical" and "a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, interfaith, working-class coalition against progressives". He declared that "the only place to build a house now is on the left side of MAGA square", which he understands as the faction represented by Steve Bannon. Morgan Jones and David Klemperer, co-editors of Renewal, said that by choosing to align with the MAGA movement, Glasman had sided with forces which threaten social democracy, and which today represent its primary antagonist. They said that Glasman's current positions "should give us pause before treating him as constructive interlocutor within the Labour Party".
Parliamentary caucus In January 2025, Dan Carden, Labour MP for Liverpool Walton, formed a caucus within the Parliamentary Labour Party alongside three 2024 intake MPs, Jonathan Brash, Jonathan Hinder, and David Smith. Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer's chief of staff, was said to be paying attention to their work. LabourList reported that the group's MPs had grown "into double digits" by February. Brash said the group was talking to other parliamentary groups that were 'broadly aligned' with them. In May, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she was a member of Blue Labour.
On 2 June 2025, The Guardian reported that the Blue Labour caucus was influencing government policy relating to the electoral challenge of Reform UK, and recommended that the government legislate against equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policies in employment, sentencing decisions and other aspects in the public sector. In the September 2025 cabinet reshuffle, Mahmood was appointed Home Secretary. This was seen as signalling a shift towards a more hard-line immigration policy by the government of Keir Starmer. Maurice Glasman welcomed her appointment as "fantastic" and said she was "now clearly the leader" of Blue Labour.
Parliamentary membership In Parliament, Blue Labour is understood to have a membership going "into double digits" as of February 2025, although many have chosen to stay anonymous. Publicly identified MPs who are members of Blue Labour include: Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton (since 2017) Jonathan Brash, MP for Hartlepool (since 2024) Jonathan Hinder, MP for Pendle and Clitheroe (since 2024) David Smith, MP for North Northumberland (since 2024) Connor Naismith, MP for Crewe and Nantwich (since 2024) Shabana Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Ladywood (since 2010), Home Secretary (since 2025) Margaret Mullane, MP for Dagenham and Rainham (since 2024) Preet Kaur Gill, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston (since 2017)
Key issues
Overview
Marcel Stoetzle describes Blue Labour as "a form of 'lower case', socially-minded conservatism". Blue Labour rejects progressivism, arguing that the strategy pursued by Labour to win over the progressive middle classes made the party technocratic and isolated them from the alienated and cultural working class. Blue Labour seeks to reorient the party towards ethical socialism, and reject the legacy of New Labour. Blue Labour rejects statist and materialist conceptions of socialism, and instead promotes a conservative concept of 'the Good Society' rooted in localism and communitarianism; its approach to social and cultural issues has been described as "faith, family and flag". James Avis describes the philosophy of Blue Labour as follows:
PoliticsHome described Blue Labour as both "pro-worker" and "anti-woke". Dan Carden, who founded the Blue Labour caucus in 2025, denounces progressive politics as "incredibly damaging", arguing that it threatens communities and erodes social institutions such as trade unions and churches. Jonathan Hinder summarised the political agenda of Blue Labour as "bold, left-wing economic policies, much lower immigration, a complete rejection of divisive identity politics, and proudly reclaiming our patriotism."
Blue Labour strongly supports protectionism and reindustrialisation, and the MPs of the caucus praised Donald Trump for protecting American industries and ensuring 'secure borders'. The founder of Blue Labour, Maurice Glasman, praised Trump and Reform UK for their social policies and resonating with the working-class electorate, but criticised their economic policies, stating that "all of this is worthless unless you're actually pro-worker and pro-trade union." Blue Labour MPs identify as socially right-of-centre, and Carden stated that he does not mind being called socially conservative.
One of the core premises of Blue Labour is that under the governments of Blair and Brown, Labour lost touch with its traditional supporters – socially conservative low-income voters, working class, and those living in small towns and postindustrial cities; Blue Labour charges the Labour Party with becoming "the party of globalisation and metropolitan liberalism, pushing for an ever-more centralised state, free markets and mass immigration". A leading Blue Labour thinker, Jonathan Rutherford, argued that social-democratic parties declined because of their priority for "abstract values" and universalist principles of equality and rights.
Blue Labour argues that socialist parties should instead embrace "particular communal bonds of mutual reciprocity, local identity, and national, familial and religious ties" that characterise working class communities. Believing that the state should 'grow out of the experience of everyday ordinary life' rather than being based on 'abstract values that exist prior to people's everyday experience and which it superimposes on their lives', Blue Labour rejects liberal capitalism, centralised state, free movement of labour and the European Union - it instead favours a corporatist model of labour relations, where work does not only provide a means to make a living, but also becomes "the primary bearer of the cultural and ethical traditions of the national community, to which political realm should be subservient".
Brexit and immigration