The foreword to Rethinking Labour’s Past, authored in 2022 by Rachel Reeves, begins with the assertion that ‘Labour’s history matters’.[1] Reeves proceeds to frame Labour’s past triumphs as foundational in defining ‘what it is to be Labour’, emphasising an enduring connection between the party and its past.[2] Yet, Labour’s past does not operate as a static inheritance, unilaterally dictating to contemporary politics; instead, a dialogue exists between the past and the present, each informing understandings of the other. Consequently, Labour’s past is not a fixed account; it is a disputed terrain of understanding, containing often disparate and conflicting interpretations of the past.

This research will examine Labour’s complex interaction with its past through tracing fluctuations in understandings of Labour’s historic leaders. Organised thematically, this research adopts an interpretive approach to analysing the formation, cultivation, and deployment of interpretations of Labour’s past. In advancing understandings of Labour’s interaction with its past, this research possesses implications for the study of the politics of memory, political leadership, and the position of history within contemporary politics. Fundamentally, this research seeks to frame Labour’s interaction with its past as neither incidental nor commemorative; it is an active and effectual negotiation. This research statement outlines the conceptual underpinnings of the research, the historiographical context, the analytical approach, the research questions, the archival research, and a placement opportunity.

A clear illustration of Labour’s interaction with its past can be observed in Keir Starmer’s speech to the 2020 Labour Party Conference, referred to as ‘Labour Connected’.[3] Starmer utilised ‘Labour Connected’ as an opportunity to distance the party from its immediate past, pledging to not dwell on ‘the questions of the past’, and emphasising that ‘[w]e’re under new leadership’.[4] Yet, this apparent rupture was not absolute; Starmer strategically invoked the achievements of historic Labour Governments in order to ‘remind ourselves of what this party can achieve at its best’.[5] This speech foregrounds Labour’s complex interaction with its past, highlighting a nuanced relationship that forms the foundation of this research.

Among the intriguing statements Starmer offered to ‘Labour Connected’, one comment offers a particularly conspicuous insight into Labour’s complex temporal interaction: ‘when you look back to 1945, 1964 and 1997 you learn an important lesson. The lesson is don’t look back, look to the future.’[6] In this instance, Labour’s historic victories are invoked while being simultaneously emptied of contextual specificity, transformed into repositories of meaning capable of legitimising disparate political agendas. 1945, 1964, and 1997 do not represent fixed, consistent understandings of Labour’s past; rather, they serve as malleable symbols, subject to continual reinterpretation. This ‘presentist’ engagement with the past, interpreting the past through the lens of contemporary priorities, constitutes an important theme within this research; ‘presentism’ is understood not as an analytical mistake to be challenged but as an object of historical study.[7]

Beyond historic electoral victories, a similar practice of reinterpretation applies to individual Labour leaders, with understandings of party actors retrospectively constructed in order to satisfy contemporary strategic priorities. Frequently devoid of historical contextualisation, discursive interpretations of Labour leaders serve as a device to communicate associations and ideals, sustained not by facts but by understandings. Political leadership is therefore approached not purely as an institutional role; leadership is also a discursive construct, conditioned by shared narratives. Labour actors are not understood simply through their actions, but through the accruing of interpretations that become affixed to historic individuals.

Labour’s tendency to cultivate individual cults of personality is a significant irony of a party rooted in principles of collective action and solidarity, engineering celebrated narratives of the party’s bygone champions.[8] This dynamic is in part conditioned by Labour’s relative lack of historic electoral success; of the party’s nineteen leaders only four have secured parliamentary majorities. Consequently, party ‘winners’ are frequently points of fixation, at the forefront of the Labour tendency to cultivate individual cults of personality, both to their benefit and detriment.[9] However, electoral success serves as merely one component of many which condition how Labour actors are subsequently perceived; understandings consist of layers of interpretation and reinterpretation, influenced by a variety of forces. As a result of this continual revisionism, the boundary between exaltation as a ‘hero’ and denunciation as a ‘traitor’ can converge. This research examines how understandings of Labour leaders transverse the frontier of ‘hero’ and ‘traitor’, exploring how understandings are constructed, contested, and transformed.

[1] R. Reeves, ‘Foreword’, in N. Yeowell (ed.) Rethinking Labour’s Past (London, 2022), p. xiii.

[2] Reeves, ‘Foreword’, p. xiii.

[3] K. Starmer, ‘Full text: Keir Starmer’s conference speech’, The Spectator 22 September 2020: < https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-text-keir-starmer-s-conference-speech/> (accessed: 02/01/2026).

[4] Starmer, ‘Keir Starmer’s conference speech’.

[5] Starmer, ‘Keir Starmer’s conference speech’.

[6] Starmer, ‘Keir Starmer’s conference speech’.

[7] E. Robinson, History, Heritage and Tradition in Contemporary British Politics: Past Politics and Present Histories (Manchester, 2012).

[8] K. O. Morgan, Labour People: Leaders and Lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock (Oxford, 1987), p. 1.

[9] B. Jackson, ‘A Hundred Years of Labour Governments’, The Political Quarterly 95/2 (2024), p. 215