Ten moments at Labour conference that changed the party

From standing ovations to standing rows, Labour’s annual conference has always been more than a diary date. Across the decades, it has seen moments that have shaped the party’s identity – and sometimes politics itself. Few political gatherings manage as much theatre as the Labour Party conference, so as delegates gather again this year, here are ten of the party’s stand-out moments that played out under the conference spotlight.

1976 – The death of post-war economic consensus

When the party gathered in a rain-swept Blackpool in 1976, dark financial clouds loomed amid spiralling inflation and negotiations for an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund.

Just months after becoming Prime Minister, James Callaghan used his speech to signal the end of Keynesianism and a break from the economic consensus that had guided the nation since the end of the Second World War.

He said: “We used to think you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists – and insofar as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step.”

Callaghan reportedly did not receive a standing ovation, but received plaudits from the Financial Times and US President Gerald Ford, who told the Prime Minister he had delivered “one helluva speech”.

1981 – Healey v Benn

Months after the ‘Gang of Four’ split from the party to form the SDP, Labour faced a divisive deputy leadership battle. Tony Benn, who called for nuclear disarmament and leaving the European single market battled against former Chancellor Denis Healey for the post. The contest was the first to take place using the party’s electoral college, with 40% of votes assigned to affiliated unions and societies, and 30% each to PLP votes and delegates from CLPs.

While trade unions and CLPs lined up for Benn, Labour MPs rallied to Healey. In the weeks before the election, Healey and Benn, along with third candidate John Silkin, took part in a fringe event debate at the TUC Congress. Benn described the Winter of Discontent as a “special sort of siege economy fashioned by the IMF and imposed upon a Labour cabinet” and warned that a return to policies of nuclear armament and support of the common market would put the party “in the wilderness for a generation”.

The result saw Healey scrape to victory by a narrow margin of less than one per cent. Benn proclaimed victory, saying the left had “won the argument”. He later played a significant part in writing up the party’s 1983 manifesto, dubbed the “longest suicide note in history”, with the party crashing to its worst election defeat (at the time) since 1935.

READ MORE: Labour Party Conference 2025: Full LabourList events programme, revealed

1985 – ‘Impossible promises’

Years of infiltration of Labour by Trotskyist groups came to a head at the 1985 party conference in Bournemouth under Labour leader Neil Kinnock.

In perhaps one of the most well-known (and most quoted) conference speeches in Labour’s history, Kinnock pulled no punches as he hit out at Militant as he sought to modernise the party and return it to electability.

In particular, he took aim at the decisions made by Liverpool City Council, run by councillors linked to the Militant tendency and stressed the need to be a credible alternative for government by winning back trust with bold yet achievable policies.

He said: “Implausible promises don’t win victories. I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code. And you go through the years sticking to that – outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs. And you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council, a Labour council, hiring taxis to scuttle around the city, handing out redundancy notices to its own workers. I am telling you, no matter how entertaining, how fulfilling to short-term egos – I’ll tell you and you’ll listen – I’m telling you you can’t play politics and with people’s services or with their homes.”

The tension provoked by the speech among some was on full display as Eric Heffer stormed off the conference stage, some in the auditorium jeered and deputy leader of Liverpool council Derek Hatton heckled from part of the auditorium.

The speech symbolised the beginning of a crackdown on the far-left within the Labour Party, with Militant-affiliated MPs finding themselves deselected throughout the course of Kinnock’s leadership.

1994 – Birth of New Labour

Labour’s 1994 conference in Blackpool saw the further evolution of Tony Blair’s modernisation efforts, with the public unveiling of ‘New Labour’.

Standing behind the slogan ‘new Labour, new Britain’, Tony Blair, who had taken over the leadership following the sudden death of John Smith earlier that year, used his leadership speech to project his application of Labour’s core values of solidarity, cooperation and partnership to the modern world. Blair also made an unexpected call to overhaul some of the party’s historic aims, including the Clause IV commitment to common ownership.

The speech marked the beginning of a period where Labour would dominate national politics with a modern, media-savvy and pragmatic leadership, shedding the baggage that held it back through the 1980s.

2001 – ‘The kaleidoscope has been shaken’

A party conference after a general election win is, under normal circumstances, a joyful affair. However, when Labour gathered in Brighton three weeks after the September 11 attacks, the mood was understandably more sombre.

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s keynote speech was dominated by his reflections on the attacks, alongside the politics of globalisation and cooperation.

“The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us.”

Journalist Adam Boulton told The i Paper that the speech marked the peak of Blair’s political power, but that elements of it have not stood the test of time.

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2005 – Tensions run high over Iraq

Two years into the Iraq War and after the party’s majority was cut by more than half at the general election months earlier, the 2005 conference in Brighton saw more than 600 people detained under the Terrorism Act.

Among those facing heavy-handed tactics was 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, who was thrown out of a conference hall after heckling then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw during a speech about the war in Iraq.

Wolfgang was initially refused readmission but received a round of applause from the conference floor when he was allowed to return the following day. Tony Blair personally apologised to Wolfgang and said the incident “should not have happened”. 

2009 – ‘That’s the change we choose’

By the time of the 2009 party conference in Brighton, Labour was trailing in the polls to David Cameron’s Conservatives by as much as 15 points. It later proved that the conference would be the last while Labour held office until 2024.

Gordon Brown rallied conference by reminding them and the country of the benefits a Labour government, and politics as a whole, can make to people’s lives – in a defiant speech that still swells the heart of many a Labour activist.

He said: “If anyone says that to fight doesn’t get you anywhere, that politics can’t make a difference, that all parties are the same, then look what we’ve achieved together since 1997: the winter fuel allowance, the shortest waiting times in history, crime down by a third, the creation of Sure Start, the Cancer Guarantee, record results in schools, more students than ever, the Disability Discrimination Act, devolution, civil partnerships, peace in Northern Ireland, the social chapter, half a million children out of poverty, maternity pay, paternity leave, child benefit at record levels, the minimum wage, the ban on cluster bombs, the cancelling of debt, the trebling of aid, the first ever Climate Change Act – that’s the Britain we’ve been building together, that’s the change we choose.”

2018 – The seeds of defeat?

Labour’s conference in Liverpool in 2018 had a different mood from the euphoria of a year before following the party’s relative success at the general election. 

Allegations of anti-Semitism, anger over the response to the Russian-orchestrated Salisbury poisonings and ambiguity on the big issue of the day – Brexit, set the stage for a conference under the glare of media scrutiny.

Jeremy Corbyn committed the party to work with Jewish communities to eradicate anti-Semitism from the party and wider society, but faced criticism by the same groups for not offering a personal apology.

While his speech, including his pledges for a green jobs revolution, was well received in the conference hall, the unresolved rows foreshadowed the historic defeat the party would face the following year.

2022 – God Save the King

The 2022 conference took place just weeks after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, with the event in Liverpool opening with a rendition of the national anthem. Despite fears of protests and heckles, tributes to the late Queen and the anthem passed without incident, with a Labour source telling The Guardian that it was a sign of “how the party has changed”.

Combined with a backdrop of the Union Flag on the conference stage, the moment marked a sea change from the Corbyn era, but some – including the former Labour leader – criticised the gesture as “excessively nationalist”.

2023 – A glittering future ahead

The 2023 conference in Liverpool, branded with the tagline ‘Let’s Get Britain’s Future Back’, made headlines as Keir Starmer was grabbed by a protester who stormed the conference stage and poured glitter on the Labour leader.

Starmer brushed off the incident, casting aside his jacket and rolling up his sleeves to begin his conference speech.

“Protest or power – that’s why we changed our party, conference”, he said to great applause.

The protester, Yaz Ashmawi, later told The Guardian that he regretted having touched Starmer and said: “If even for a second he was worried about his safety then that is horrible.”

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