'I am an agitator!'

On 22 January 1908, Keir Hardie stood down as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. His reasons reflected the various paths to socialism that had been debated before and after his tenure as the first leader of the Labour Party. 

When giving notice of his intention not to stand, he said, 'My strongest reason for desiring to get out of the Chair is that I may be free to speak out.' He felt the PLP had lost its way and even suggested that 'those of us...who are socialists and who believe in fighting will have to get together occasionally on our own account, and if we cannot drag the party with us, we will 'gan oor ain gait’.' Looking back, others agreed with him, arguing the PLP was 'indistinguishable from that of the radical wing of the Liberal Party.'

Philip Snowden also felt that the Labour Party had shifted from campaigning to parliamentary activity. Ramsay MacDonald, on the other hand, was growing apart from Hardie, complaining of his ‘utter neglect of parliamentary business.’ He believed parliament was central to Labour’s business and saw Hardie’s activities as ‘tub-thumping and mere ‘platform idealism’. There were policy differences as well. Hardie had proposed a Right to Work Bill without adequate consultation. He was also nursing some personal grievances as Hardie’s overseas trips had attracted much more attention than his own.

When he returned from his Empire tour, Hardie spoke at a sell-out meeting in the Albert Hall, reluctantly chaired by MacDonald. Hardie teased press reports that claimed he ‘was not a success as a political leader’. He proudly retorted, ‘I am an agitator. My work has consisted of trying to stir up a divine discontent with wrong. With what remains of my life, I intend to follow the same course.’

And he did. Over women’s suffrage, he urged women to agitate because ‘the more clearly will the root cause of all their trouble be seen, economic dependence on men.’ Similarly, in parliament over the King’s visit to Russia, accusing him of ‘condoning Russian atrocities. Apparently, ‘atrocities’ was unparliamentary language!

Hardie often claimed to be a revolutionary, but not a violent one. As his leading biographer Caroline Benn concluded, he believed in ‘Agitating for immediate change – by awakening people to their inherent rights and urging them to organise together to claim them.’ For Hardie, agitation was the highest form of political action, and the constitutional path would work only if agitation were constant and the law permitted freedom of action. In that, there may be a lesson for today.