Luigi Sturzo and British Labour Party

In this article, the author intends to explore the attitude of Luigi Sturzo, the founder of the Italian Popular Party, towards the political phenomenon which was British Labour. Sturzo had recently moved to Great Britain, as an anti-fascist exile, and witnessed the formation of the first Labour Cabinet, headed by James Ramsey MacDonald in 1924. In his writings then and later, Sturzo highlights the original aspects of Labourism that made it so special compared with the tradition of continental socialism. In particular, Sturzo captures the gradualist and reformist traits of this political process, contrasting it with the revolutionary method of socialism. Sturzo interprets the Labour phenomenon as the legitimate claim of the different and contrasting interests of capital and labour, within the individual unions, and accepts the development of the free play of these interests so that they are “harmonised” on the field of politics and in governmental action. In Italy, a similar attempt took place on the ambiguous and ahistorical ground of corporativism of a fascist stamp. As was foreseen by Sturzo, but not by a good part of the Catholic intelligentsia of the time, the attempt failed miserably.