British Diplomatic Oil Crisis: Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical Rivalries in the Persian Gulf: Drawing a Lesson? Or Sir Anthony Eden‘s Delusion of Grandeur.

The
Labour Party always considered itself primarily a socialist
party and only to a limited extent as Marxist. Its organisation and
doctrine grew out of the pragmatically oriented British trade union
movement and an old humanitarian Christian reform ideal, which at
times entered a phase of social and political radicalism and took
over the liberal inheritance. This characteristic tradition of the
British working-class movement, which survived in years to come in
spite of adoption of some Marxist theories, also determined the
Labour Party’s colonial doctrine.51

The British Labour Party
until 1914 not have an anti-colonialist
doctrine which could differentiate it from the continental socialist
parties. ‘In 1900, led by Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb, the Fabian
Society even openly supported imperialism and rejected the pro-Boer
attitude of leading liberals.’ 52 But, in
the years which followed, Sydney Oliver, C.R. Buxton, Mary Kingsley
and E.D. Morel’s influence, who represented the liberal or radical
tradition, made itself felt. They were more interested in the actual
situation in the colonies than in a theory of imperialism. They
demanded more active reforms, to improve the lot of the native
population, instead of the withdrawal of the colonial power.

Hobson provided the Labour
Party with a ‘doctrine’, since he
integrated colonial imperialism in economic terms; however, Hobson
was not a socialist nor even a Marxist, but a radical reformer who
anticipated the concept of trusteeship in his demand for an
‘enlightened’ colonial policy.53