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Wikipedia:

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is one of the two major political parties in Jamaica, the other being the People's National Party (PNP). While its name might suggest that it is a social democratic party (as is the case for "Labour" parties in several other Commonwealth realms such as Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom), the JLP is actually a conservative party.

Are there other countries with right-wing/conservative parties that have left-style words in their title like "Labour", Workers' etc.?


The point in an answer below about Communists (conventionally described as "left-wing to far-left") being 'conservative' in the immediate aftermath of the post-Soviet space is somewhat interesting, but I'm more interested in the conventional sense of 'right-wing' and likewise for 'conservative'.

For example, the JLP "believes in a market-driven economy and individual personal responsibility" and "illegality of homosexual acts by citing Christian values and the integrity of the family". True, Stalinism also made homosexual acts illegal, but let's not get into that.

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    Are you asking about a formal position or the actual position? I am asking because most of the socialist parties in Europe on paper claim to be center-left often they implement right wing policies. The most recent example are the tax breaks proposed by the German government, but in the past there are a lot of example of socialist parties introducing new types of temporary contracts and other tricks to weaken workers rights.
    – FluidCode
    Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 9:21
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    Are you talking about economically right-wing parties, or socially-conservative (anti-LGBT, anti-feminist, anti-abortion) parties with leftist/socialist economic policies? it's really 2 separate questions.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 11:02
  • @StuartF: I'm most interested in parties that combine them and [still] label themselves as Labor etc. As I mentioned, some Stalinist parties were also socially conservative in some way [homosexuality etc.], but that observation alone isn't very satisfying (let alone new to me). Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 11:03
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    Is this question about economical right/left? Or about what is now presented as ideological right/left, which is both separate from the economical one, and highly shifting. For example in the 1848 revolutions, nationalism, ethnostates, and nationality-based separatism was a left-wing concept, while a melting pot multi-ethnic centrally controlled empire was a conservative position.
    – vsz
    Commented Nov 14, 2023 at 8:54
  • Nobody has mentioned National Socialist German Workers' Party yet. Amazing. Commented Dec 4, 2023 at 12:10

8 Answers 8

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Up until very recently, the Brazilian Labour Party would have fit these criteria; despite the name suggesting a left-wing ideology, the party pivoted right in recent years. In November 2023, it merged with Patriota to form the new Democratic Renewal Party.

In the Czech Republic, there's the Worker's Party of Social Justice, which is a continuation of the banned Worker's Party. Among their policies are withdrawal from NATO and the EU, reinstatement of the death penalty, and criminalising homosexuality.

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In Portugal, the PSD (Partido Social Democrata, Social Democratic Party) is the main centre-right party, with 77 seats in the current Portuguese parliament. The main centre-left party is just the PS (Partido Socialista, Socialist Party), with 120 seats.

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In early Russian Federation (and some would say to this day), Communist Party was conservative/Right Wing because other political forces were taking the progressivist / reformist / economic liberal positions on the spectrum and the Communist Party agenda was keeping whatever is left of Communist economy and social policy, and defending industrial sector of the economy. Their social base was Russian version of "rust belt" (Middle Volga region) - places like that are strongly conservative in other countries.

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    Meh, this is actually an example where conservative means left-wing. The same goes for all the Soviet-sphere states in that transition period. But this is relative to who was in power previously rather than ideology on the usual scale. Commented Nov 12, 2023 at 7:34
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    ""rust belt" (Middle Volga region) - places like that are strongly conservative in other countries" -- doubtful how strongly they are 'conservative' and in what sense of that word, besides not wanting job losses. Commented Nov 12, 2023 at 7:42
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    @Fizz When everybody else is more economic liberal / globalist, you end up right-ish.
    – alamar
    Commented Nov 12, 2023 at 8:16
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    Fair enough, although Wikipedia claims that protectionism is more a characteristic of the left than of the right, but I'm not totally convinced about that en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…. More recently it's chucked to populism journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0032321717723505 Commented Nov 12, 2023 at 8:19
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    OTOH that paper (on the Dutch electorate) notes "Opposing trade openness is a more substantial driver of voting for a rightist populist party than for a leftist one." So [in part] that's why I'm not so convinced. Commented Nov 12, 2023 at 8:28
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Spain's Frente Obrero (literally: "Workers' Front") fits the description, at least when it comes to social matters:

Despite being strongly connected with the PML(RC) and supporting far-left ideologies such as Marxism-Leninism, the FO is not explicitly communist. Their political ideology is a syncretic combination of left-wing economic positions and right-wing social viewpoints.

In their program A Spain for the Workers, they defend national sovereignty, Hispanic identity, free university education, the nationalization of strategic economic sectors, energy sovereignty, nuclear energy, increasing the minimum wage, supporting the rural sector, promoting birth rates, creating more public housing, introducing rent control and limiting immigration.

They oppose capitalism, the European Union, NATO, surrogacy, feminism, deindustrialization, queer ideology, the Trans Law, positive discrimination, islamization, cosmopolitanism and political correctness.

(Emphasis mine on policies commonly associated with right-wing parties.)

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  • While a valid answer, this is a bit of a different phenomenon to the JLP. The JLP drifted from centre left to centre right. Parties like FO are a bit more complicated. You could describe them as trying to recreate white-working class 'brocialism' of the 30s to 50s, before feminism, antiracism etc was a major factor in progressive movements, or as fig leaves for hard-right culture warriors.
    – Ne Mo
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 12:00
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The Danish party Venstre (literally "the Left") started out as a left-wing party, but by now is considered center-right.

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    To add to the confusion: Radikale Venstre (literally "the Radical Left") who are considered centre/centre-left. Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 13:36
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At the European parliament there is the center-right European People's Party, and one of its Spanish members is Partido Popular (People's Party).

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    Yeah, but 'people' is semantically a bit broader than 'workers/labour'. Albeit most people work... OTOH some communist parties have "people's" in their name too. Commented Nov 12, 2023 at 9:13
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    @Fizz yes, I was aiming at its association to communist countries, as the question seems to allow for some leeway.
    – SJuan76
    Commented Nov 12, 2023 at 21:25
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    a party named "People's Party" usually is a or the major conservative party in Europe. It does not indicate being left-wing at all.
    – Chieron
    Commented Nov 13, 2023 at 11:58
  • @Chieron that's so strange to an old Cold Warrior like me, who remembers People's Liberation parties.
    – RonJohn
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 14:26
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The Cambodian People's Party - I know it's 'People's' and not Labour or Worker, but it started out as a dictatorial Communist Party - as in 'people's republic' - and is now a dictatorial conservative party. So 'People's' was not being used in the same sense as the Spanish 'People's Party', but the two parties are now on the same side of the left-right divide.

Unlike other ruling communistic parties, like the Chinese Communist Party or the Communist Party of Vietnam, which still claim to follow some form of Marxism, the Cambodian People's Party officially disavowed Marxism in 1991.

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  • Since Cambodia is very close to China is almost every regard, I suspect their ideology mirrored the changes in the CCP, but I know very little about ideology in Cambodia in particular, these days. Commented Nov 17, 2023 at 17:09
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The Liberal Party of Australia is a right-wing party.

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    But outside of the US, liberal is not a "left-style word".
    – user103496
    Commented Nov 14, 2023 at 0:49
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    The Liberal Party of Australia, founded in 1944, was never a worker's party. At it's most "left" it was center right party, representing "middle Australia" with policies supporting small businesses. The worker's party in Australia has been the Australian Labor Party, founded in 1891. It is the oldest political party in Australia.
    – Fred
    Commented Nov 15, 2023 at 1:25

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