Labour Movement for Europe
socialist Society
The Labour Movement for Europe (LME) is one of 20 "socialist societies" affiliated to the UK Labour Party, just like the Fabians and The Jewish Labour Movement.
The society campaigns on European issues within the Labour Party, supporting UK membership of the EU prior to Brexit and campaigning to reform and improve the EU. During the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum it made a left-wing case for Remain and until the December 2019 general election result argued there should be a "people's vote" between Remain and the final Brexit deal negotiated by the government, in which the Labour Party should argue passionately and clearly to Remain within the EU. Now that Brexit has happened, it campaigns for the government to negotiate the closest possible relationship with the EU and for Labour to maintain relations with its sister parties in the Party of European Socialists. Following the 2024 general election, the LME now has more MPs than the Conservative Party does.
In the 2020 Labour leadership and deputy leadership elections, the LME endorsed Keir Starmer and Ian Murray for Leader and Deputy respectively. Chair of the LME at the time, Anna Turley commented that it was "because of their strong pro-EU values and the fact that we think they are in the best place to take Labour to victory at the next election."
Originally set up in the early 1960s as the Labour Committee for Europe, it split in 1981 when some of its prominent members (notably Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, Bill Rodgers, John Roper and Tom Ellis) left Labour to found the SDP. Others (such as Denis Howell MP (who became the new chair) and trade union leaders Geoffrey Drain and Roy Grantham) stayed and renamed the organisation Labour Movement for Europe, making a left wing case for Europe, remaining within the Labour Party.
Over recent years, its Chairs have included Bill Rammell, Chris Bryant, Mary Creagh, Richard Corbett, and Anna Turley. The current chair is Stella Creasy.
Current executive
Chair: Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow
Honorary President: Neil Kinnock, former Labour leader (1983-1992), Vice-President of the European Commission (1999-2004), Labour peer since 2005
Hon Vice Presidents:
- Baroness Jan Royall, former Leader of the House of Lords, Labour peer since 2004
- Richard Corbett, the last UK Labour leader in the EU Parliament (2017-2020), Labour MEP from 1996 to 2009 and then again from 2014 to 2020.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Labour Movement for Europe” is socialist Society. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Labour, Movement and Europe, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q55640299. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2019, 2024 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Labour Movement for Europe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.