Labour Independent Group
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The Labour Independent Group was an organisation of five former Labour Party Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom.
In April 1948, the MP John Platts-Mills campaigned for Pietro Nenni and the Italian Socialist Party, against the Labour government policy. He was expelled from the party. In May 1949, six Labour MPs voted against signing the North Atlantic Treaty, and of them, Lester Hutchinson, Leslie Solley and Konni Zilliacus were expelled.
All these MPs were known for their communist sympathies, and the four joined with Denis Pritt, who had been expelled from the Labour Party in 1940 for supporting the Soviet Union in the Russo-Finnish War, to form the Labour Independent Group.
The group adopted a position of support for Stalin. Zilliacus developed a negative impression of Stalin when the two met, and so he resigned from the group later in the 1949, instead adopting a position of support for Tito, who he had also met.
All four remaining MPs stood as "Independent Labour" candidates in the 1950 UK general election, but all lost their seats, thus dissolving the group.
