Conclusion: A Century of Constitutional Conservatism

Abstract

The most notable aspect of Labour’s approach to constitutional questions throughout the Party’s history has been its conservatism and caution and its oscillation between ambivalence and antipathy over particular proposals for constitutional reform. Much of this constitutional conservatism has derived from the Labour Party’s traditional disdain towards theorization and intellectual genuflection and the pride which its leadership has invariably placed, instead, on pragmatism and piecemeal reform. While Labour has invariably been depicted by its Conservative opponents as being imbued with dangerous elements of dogmatism and radicalism, and thus repeatedly charged with posing a threat to the British political system and ‘a thousand years of history’, the reality has been that the Party has frequently displayed an almost ostentatious obsequiescence towards the political institutions and procedural norms which collectively and cumulatively comprise Britain’s constitutional framework.