Republican Labour Party

The Republican Labour Party was a political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1964, with two MPs at Stormont, Harry Diamond and Gerry Fitt. They had previously been the sole Northern Ireland representatives of the Socialist Republican Party and the Irish Labour Party respectively, so a common joke was that "two one-man parties had become one two-man party".

Fitt won the West Belfast seat in the UK general election of 1966, and held it in the 1970 election.

In August 1970, Fitt left the party and took most of its support with him, to found the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Led by Paddy Kennedy, the rump party struggled on for a time, but it was wiped out in both the 1973 elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly and the 1973 local elections and as a result was disbanded.

Defunct political parties of Northern Ireland
Unionist / Loyalist
  • Commonwealth Labour Party
  • Independent Unionist Association
  • Northern Ireland Unionist Party
  • Protestant Unionist Party
  • UK Unionist Party
  • Ulster Constitution Party
  • Ulster Democratic Party
  • Ulster Popular Unionist Party
  • Ulster Progressive Unionist Association
  • Ulster Unionist Labour Association
  • Unionist Party of Northern Ireland
  • United Ulster Unionist Council
  • United Ulster Unionist Party
  • Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party
  • Volunteer Political Party
Nationalist / Republican
  • All Ireland Anti-Partition League
  • Federation of Labour
  • Fianna Uladh
  • Irish Anti-Partition League
  • Irish Independence Party
  • Irish Union Association
  • National Democratic Party
  • Nationalist Party
  • National League of the North
  • National Unity
  • Northern Council for Unity
  • Official Sinn Féin
  • People's Democracy
  • Red Republican Party
  • Republican Socialist Collective
  • Saor Éire
  • Socialist Republican Party
  • Unity
Left wing
  • Belfast Labour Party
  • Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist)
  • Communist Party of Northern Ireland
  • Democratic Left
  • Independent Labour Group
  • Independent Socialist Party
  • Labour Coalition
  • Labour Party of Northern Ireland
  • Labour and Trade Union Group
  • League for a Workers Republic
  • Northern Ireland Labour Party
  • Republican Labour Party
  • Socialist Labour Alliance
  • United Labour Party
  • Workers League
Ulster nationalist
  • British Ulster Dominion Party
  • Ulster Independence Movement
  • Ulster Independence Party
  • Ulster Movement for Self-Determination
Others
  • Democratic Partnership
  • Newtownabbey Ratepayers' Association
  • Northern Ireland Women's Coalition
  • Social Credit Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  • Ulster Liberal Party
  • Unbought Tenants Association
Excluding those left-wing parties avowedly nationalist / republican or unionist / loyalist.

Famous quotes containing the words republican, labour and/or party:

    “The Republican Vice Presidential Candidate ... asks you to place him a heartbeat from the Presidency.”
    —Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)

    “Coming to Rome, much labour and little profit! The King whom you seek here, unless you bring Him with you you will not find Him.”
    —Anonymous 9th century, Irish. “Epigram,” no. 121, A Celtic Miscellany (1951, revised 1971)

    “If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.”
    —Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)