The Cambridge Universities Labour Club (CULC)
is a student political society, first founded
as the Cambridge University Fabian Society
in 1905, to provide a voice for Labour Party
values of socialism and social democracy at
the University of Cambridge. Although the
society served only University of Cambridge
students for most of its history, in 2007,
membership was also opened up to students
of Anglia Ruskin. CULC's varied past has seen
it go through several disaffiliations with
the national Labour Party, including periods
in the 1960s and 1970s when it was under the
influence of the entryist Militant tendency.
It is currently affiliated to the Labour Party,
Labour Students, and the Cambridge Constituency
Labour Party.
CULC holds regular speaker events, social
events, topical discussions and takes part
in year-round campaigning activity, with the
local Labour Party and on issues decided by
the membership. Current campaigns include
pursuing a living wage for employees of both
universities, tackling pay-day loans, and
encouraging ethical investment by Cambridge
Colleges. In recent years, the club has hosted
a number of high-profile figures including
Andrew Adonis, Angela Eagle, Harriet Harman,
Hazel Blears, Ed Miliband, David Miliband,
Margaret Hodge, Ed Balls, John Prescott, Tristram
Hunt, Alan Johnson, Andy Burnham, Iain McNicol,
Hilary Benn, Axelle Lemaire and Ken Livingstone.
== History ==
CULC has gone through several name changes.
The society it began as an offshoot of was
founded as the Cambridge University Fabian
Society in 1905, and then changed its name
in June 1915 to Cambridge University Socialist
Society (which retained a separate Fabian
Society within it), dedicated to "complete
political and industrial democracy... [and]
supersession of the capitalist system". It
then changed its name to Cambridge University
Labour Club in the late 1910s, before reverting
to being the C.U. Socialist Society at the
end of the decade.
=== Cambridge University Socialist Society
(1915-1920) ===
Between 1918 and 1920 CUSS was the only society
in which socialists could meet. Through study
circles, investigations, speakers, and joint
action with the Cambridge Labour Party, CUSS
sought ‘the realisation of complete political
and industrial democracy’ and ‘the supersession
of the capitalist system by a co-operative
commonwealth’ using common ownership if
land and industry. Its key concerns were the
Labour Party programme, the land question,
the Russian Revolution, German socialism,
syndicalism, and American socialism. It continued
to debate with the local party and invited
such speakers as G D H Cole, Bertrand Russell,
George Bernard Shaw, and J C Squire.
Most importantly, CUSS was pacifist. Affiliated
to the No-Conscription Fellowship, it vehemently
opposed military training in schools. But
such activity was dangerous. On 7 March 1919
a meeting was broken up and three members
were forced to stand on a table and sing the
national anthem before being dunked in the
river by a group of veterans. Maurice Dobb,
the socialist economist, would experience
the same treatment, and in 1922 CULC would
be forced to relocate its premises due to
its landlord’s fear of attacks. A proposed
meeting with the local party in March 1919
had to be cancelled as a crowd of hostile
demonstrators occupied the Friends’ Meeting
House and began to sing. The result was that
the University’s Liberals and Conservatives
refused to co-operate with their socialist
counterparts throughout the 1920s.
=== Cambridge University Labour Club (1920-1973)
===
==== 1920s-1940s ====
The national rise of the Labour Party seems
to have provoked undergraduates to create
their own Labour Club at the end of the 1910s.
This was partly motivated by ‘a considerable
number of the present associates, who were
not satisfied with the extremism’ of CUSS
and by a decline in the attendance and frequency
of meetings, perhaps owing to the widespread
intimidation of socialists.
On 14 April 1920 CULC was duly formed. As
a direct result members of CUSS resolved to
become a study circle within the Labour Club.
To maintain its distinctive identity Maurice
Dobb proposed that CUSS ‘should hold meetings
with speakers too "red" for the Labour Club,
but, by some strange jugglery, under Labour
Club auspices – particularly financial auspices’.
It certainly retained a more radical position
than most CULC members, remaining committed
to ‘common ownership’, ‘workers’ control’,
and building a ‘revolutionary working-class
movement’. Of all the ‘red’ speakers
it invited, the most prominent was Leonid
Krassin of the USSR, the People’s Commissar
of Foreign Trade, who could not attend in
1922 owing to the Geneva Conference. Nonetheless,
they were addressed by Hugh Dalton on foreign
policy, Harold Laski, Dobb, and Russell.
But with no meetings held at all between November
1923 and January 1925, it seems that the reasons
for the formation of CULC had resonated with
University socialists. Indeed, on 8 May 1925
Dobb proposed that CUSS be organised as a
society which supported the Labour Research
Department, or perhaps trained teachers for
the Plebs League or the Labour Colleges, or
worked with local minority movements: as ‘a
body doing definite work’, it might then
retain some popularity and relevance.
CULC attracted a wide array of prominent speakers.
Beginning in 1920 with Fred Bramley, Assistant
General Secretary of the TUC, it was soon
visited by the MPs J C Wedgwood, Margaret
Bondfield, Ramsay MacDonald, and Ellen Wilkinson;
and the academics Raymond Postgate, Joseph
Needham, Harold Laski, Bertrand Russell, R
H Tawney, and many others. From MacDonald’s
visit in 1925, half of all profits (equating
to nearly £15) were sent to the strikers
in Shepreth. CULC was also close to the Cambridge
Labour Party, gaining the attendance of Cllr
William Briggs, Hugh Dalton, Cllr Clara Rackham,
and Alec Firth. More broadly, the Club organised
summer schools with the University Labour
Federation (ULF), ran a library, held Sunday
teas, and ran research committees. Perhaps
CULC was a little too assiduous in its political
education and canvassing: in January 1922
it was forced to move its premises as the
landlord refused to renew the club’s lease
‘on the grounds that the Club did not drink
enough beer’.
Despite its exposed left flank CULC grew rapidly
and became the largest student political society
by the late 1920s. By 1924 there were around
100 paying members and in 1925 David Hardman
was elected as the first ever socialist President
of the Cambridge Union Society; two CULC members,
A L Hutchinson and the future educationalist
Lionel Elvin, would succeed him. CULC would
play an important role in campaigning in the
town. They participated in the campaigns for
the parliamentary elections in 1922, 1923,
and 1924. The last of those elections saw
CULC make a special effort in the county Labour
Party. But it was the selection of Hardman
which truly motivated members. They began
canvassing for Hardman in 1927 and organising
socials with college workers and trade union
gatherings for him. They were also entrusted
to organise the entire campaign in Castle,
a ward which covered most of the areas of
the present-day Newnham and Castle wards.
However, CULC would soon run into its own
political difficulties. The political divisions
among members were made clear as the club
changed its name to Cambridge University Labour
Society in 1927 and Cambridge University Labour
and Socialist Club in 1928. As the national
party confronted the divide created by the
leadership’s response to the financial crisis
in 1929, CULC ‘feeling unwilling to tie
itself officially to an apology for a Labour
Government whose record it did not greatly
admire’, changed its name to Cambridge University
Socialist Society and disaffiliated from the
national Labour Party in 1930. But it had
a home in Cambridge; its economic position
was shared by most members of the local party
and, crucially, Alex Wood. CULC thus continued
to campaign for local Labour candidates. But
its new rules allowed Communists and other
socialists to join and it soon fell under
the control of the former.
In the 1930s, the club now known as CUSC (Cambridge
University Socialist Club) took the pacifist
case extremely seriously, producing a pamphlet
entitled "Conscription for Britain?" in 1938
which attacked the government for abandoning
collective security. It was on this basis
that CUSC also opposed the policy of appeasement.
Their commitment to pacifism brought danger
to the University’s socialists: in March
1938 their rooms were raided and slogans in
support of Franco were scratched on the walls
of one room, while a speech by Clement Attlee
to CUSC in the Corn Exchange was interrupted
by fireworks. In December 1939, a new form
of CULC was founded for those whose opinions
sat closer to the national Labour Party than
CUSC with regard to war.
During the war, the ongoing activity of CULC
seemed to have failed to inspire an undergraduate
population whose enthusiasm for socialism
was mostly lukewarm. In October 1941 CULC
began a periodical entitled the Labour Club
Review. One edition from November 1941 carried
an editorial which praised socialism as ‘a
faith to fight for’. ‘Successful and well-established
movements always tend to lose their early
fire’, the editor commented. ‘Now parents
no longer protest when their elder sons join
the Labour Party. The Party has become "His
Majesty’s Government." As its numbers have
grown, its belief has weakened and almost
all former fervour has been lost’. It seemed
that the combination of the party’s long
period of opposition during the 1930s following
the crippling divide of the financial crisis,
combined with the need to focus on the war
over and above ideological concerns, had dampened
undergraduate enthusiasm for the Labour Party
during the early 1940s. Although CULC organised
speakers’ events, dance classes, grand balls,
and training classes, it seemed that in the
Labour Party, ‘official leadership, rigid
party organisation, and the difficulties of
coalition government’ had ‘done much to
dampen enthusiasm’.
==== Post-WWII period ====
During the late 1940s CULC then suffered from
declining public confidence in the government.
One member, David Widdicombe, wrote an article
entitled ‘Against Ignorance’ in the Labour
Review in which he argued that the government
was failing to explain its programme to the
people. He suggested that party members and
MPs should ‘give the flesh of ideal to the
bare bones of legislation, to show towards
what type of community we are progressing’
and to replace ‘doctrinaire socialist economic
theory’ with arguments based on ‘efficiency
and the common good’. Practising as he preached,
he proposed to set up special Sunday discussion
groups open to all; they would be informal
and, crucially, he was ‘in favour of tea
and buns’. For Widdicombe, the view that
CULC was ‘an instrument of research is over-emphasised
and founded on the fallacy that we know something
others don’t’.
As it had always done, CULC took an active
role in politics outside of the University.
One such instance was a sympathy strike in
1946 held in Cambridge in support of lorry
drivers in Smithfield. Although only five
workers turned out in Cambridge, CULC members
argued successfully that the press had exaggerated
how much lorry drivers in Smithfield were
paid. On another occasion a young Peter Shore,
the future cabinet minister, led a protest
against the Cambridge Conservatives as they
held their gala evening with the parliamentary
candidate Hamilton Kerr and R A "Rab" Butler.
Their greatest achievement that evening was
to drown out the Conservatives’ chorus of
the first verse of the national anthem.
In the late 1960s, the Club was split among
a number of factions. CULC was seen as an
umbrella organisation for the Left, including
within it a Socialist Society and a Marxist
Society. Members of the committee, however,
were usually Labour Party members. The Right
of the Labour Party, which was largely associated
with the Fabian Society, broke off in Easter
Term 1967 and formed the Democratic Labour
Club, which forbade its members to be part
of any other political society. The Cambridge
Democratic Labour Club was immediately recognised
by the national Labour Party at Transport
House, with the Labour Club no longer recognised
by the national party. Accusations of electoral
malpractice were traded between the two, in
what CULC's Senior Treasurer Prof Bernard
Williams described as "a disagreeable and
seedy affair." Also active until at least
the 1960s was 'SocSoc' or the Cambridge University
Socialist Society.
Ultimately, the Cambridge Organisation of
Labour Students (COLS) was formed in the summer
of 1973 as a replacement for the faction-ridden
CULC. It readopted the name Cambridge University
Labour Club around 2000 and changed to its
current name again in 2007 to Cambridge Universities
Labour Club to reflect the opening up of membership.
== Constitution and organisation ==
CULC is run by an elected executive committee.
The current co-chairs are Ali Hyde of Downing
and Rhiannon Melliar-Smith of Trinity Hall.
The club also holds Annual General Meetings
and Termly General Meetings at which its members
can pass policy in the form of motions (such
as supporting the Living Wage Campaign), and
hear reports from the executive officers.
=== Membership ===
Historically membership of the society had
been open only to students of the University
of Cambridge. In 2007 a constitutional amendment
was made, opening up membership to students
of Anglia Ruskin University also. In recognition
of this fact, the name of the society was
changed to Cambridge Universities [sic] Labour
Club. In 2012 CULC elected its first Anglia
Ruskin member to the executive committee.
=== Acronym ===
The acronym CULC had historically belonged
to the Cambridge University Liberal Club,
before they became the Cambridge Student Liberal
Democrats in 1988, and the acronym is still
shared to this day with the Cambridge University
Lacrosse Club.
== Criticisms ==
The Cambridge Universities Labour Club is
independent from, but affiliated to the national
Labour Party. It has caused controversy at
times by making criticisms of the Cambridge
University Conservative Association (CUCA)
and Cambridge University for being excessively
elitist and dedicated to preserving the image
of antiquated class distinctions. CUCA has
responded denying these claims, arguing that
CULC has misconceived CUCA.
== Notable former members ==
CULC and its other various manifestations
have produced a number of notable alumni.
=== Academics ===
Mary Beard, Professor of Classics.
Cyril Bibby, biologist and sexologist.
Andrew Gamble, Professor of Politics.
Stephen Mennell, Professor of Sociology.
Vernon Henry Mottram, CU Fabian Society founding
President 1905, physiologist and nutritionist.
John Skorupski, noted academic famous for
his work on John Stuart Mill.
=== Civil Servants ===
Brian Barder, former diplomat.
=== Journalists ===
Andrew Gilligan.
Johann Hari.
Simon Hoggart, wrote for CULC's magazine Spartacus.
Paul Lewis, The Guardian journalist.
Andrew Marr, BBC political correspondent.
Neil McCartney.
=== Lords ===
Lord Allen, CU Fabian Society Chairman 1910.
Professor Lord Eatwell, special advisor to
Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband and President
of Queens' College.
Charles Falconer, Lord Chancellor and QC.
Derry Irvine, Lord Chancellor.
=== MPs ===
Diane Abbott, MP.
Clive Betts, MP.
Andy Burnham, MP, former Secretary of State
for Health.
Charles Clarke, former MP and Home Secretary;
elected President of the Cambridge Students'
Union on a Labour party slate.
Stella Creasy, MP;
Hugh Dalton, MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
1947-50
Mike Gapes, MP.
David Hardman, first Labour President of the
Cambridge Union in 1925, MP.
Arthur Henderson, Baron Rowley, MP, peer,
son of Labour Party leader Arthur Henderson.
Patricia Hewitt, MP, former Secretary of State
for Health.
Geoff Hoon, MP, Secretary of State for Defence.
Tristram Hunt, MP, historian.
Greville Janner, MP and President of the Board
of Deputies of British Jews.
Francis Noel-Baker, MP.
Peter Shore, CULC Chairman, MP and cabinet
minister.
Angela Smith, MP.
Chris Smith MP, Secretary of State for Culture,
Media and Sport.
Leslie Symonds, the first Labour MP for Cambridge
(1945–50).
=== Poets & Writers ===
Rupert Brooke, CU Fabian Society President
1909, poet.
F. M. Cornford, CU Fabian Society committee
member 1910, classical scholar.
Carey Harrison, novelist and dramatist.
Sylvia Plath, poet and novelist.
Amber Reeves, CU Fabian Society committee
member 1907, feminist writer.
J.C. Squire, CU Fabian Society founding committee
member 1905, poet, writer, historian.
Alan Watkins, political columnist.
=== Other ===
Kim Philby, Soviet spy.
Andrew Harrop, incumbent Chair of the Fabian
Society.It has been reported that when the
young Prince Charles was a student at Trinity
College, Cambridge in the 1960s, he attempted
to join the Labour Club, but was warned against
doing so by the Master of Trinity, former
Conservative politician R.A. Butler.
== Former Presidents and Chairmen ==
See List of former Presidents and Chairs of
Cambridge Universities Labour Club
== 
See also ==
Cambridge University Conservative Association
Cambridge Student Liberal Democrats
Oxford University Labour Club
