Fabian Society

The Fabian Society is an independent left-leaning think tank and membership organisation founded in 1884. We influence political and public thinking and provide a space for broad and open-minded debate. 

The society aims to promote: greater equality of power, wealth and opportunity; the value of collective action and public service; an accountable, tolerant and active democracy; citizenship, liberty and human rights; sustainable development; multilateral international cooperation. We publish insight, analysis and opinion; conduct research and undertake major policy inquiries; convene conferences, speaker meetings and roundtables; and facilitate member debate and activism across the UK.

We are one of the original founders of the Labour party and are constitutionally affiliated to the party as a socialist society. We have a stake in Labour’s democratic processes at local, regional and national level. But we are wholly independent of the party editorially, organisationally and financially.

We are a membership movement, active throughout Britain and open to everyone on the left, with over 7000 members. We don’t have organisational policy views but believe radical long-term goals are best advanced through empirical, practical, gradual reform.


Latest reports

Home comforts

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society sets out how the government can address poor-quality housing in the social and private rented sector. Our home is supposed to be a place of safety and security. But for nearly 1.5 million households who rent in England, this is not the case. More than 800,000...

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Mature decisions

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society looks at the role of social security in alleviating pensioner poverty. Over the past decade, pensioner poverty has been rising. By the government’s standard income-based poverty measure, the poverty rate increased from 14 per cent in 2010-11 to 16 per cent in 2022-23, which means there...

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Arts for us all

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society discusses putting culture and creativity at the heart of national renewal. The Fabian Society’s Arts and Creative Industries unit was set up in November 2023 to develop bold new ideas for culture policy inspired by progressive values. This pamphlet draws together some of the unit’s most...

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Brick by brick

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society looks at why we must act now to remake our housing market. Our ‘property-owning democracy’ is no longer working. The home ownership rate in England peaked in 2003 at 71 per cent of households; today, the private housing markets for both sale and rent are so...

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Going up a gear

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society looks at raising productivity by powering up investment, work and institution The UK needs productivity growth to improve living standards. Without productivity growth, we will be economically vulnerable to recessions or stagnation, and we will likely see widening inequality, lower incomes, a smaller tax base, and,...

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Cost cutters

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society sets out how the UK can address the poverty premium and make markets work for low-income families. The recent cost-of-living crisis and fall in living standards has been unprecedented in living memory. And while the rate of inflation may have fallen, families are still struggling to...

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When I’m 64: A strategy to tackle poverty before state pension age

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society presents a strategy to tackle poverty before state pension age. People usually associate the years before state pension age with affluence, not poverty. But the UK is facing a hidden poverty crisis among 60 to 65-year-olds. A quarter of people aged 60 to 65 live in...

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Caring for carers

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society offers policy options for carers' employment and financial protection. Carers make a massive contribution to society which all too often goes unrecognised, unsupported and unrewarded. The value of unpaid care has been estimated as almost equivalent to a second NHS, yet 44 per cent of working-age...

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Climbing the mountain

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society looks at Labour's key battlegrounds at the next election. A new Fabian Society and YouGov survey shows Labour leading the Conservatives by 24 percentage points nationally. Even more concerning for the Tories, a sub-sample shows Labour leading by 34 percentage points in 150 marginal seats identified...

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Equal footing

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society sets out why we cannot afford to ignore inequality. For a long time, the UK was viewed as a leader in promoting equality. Yet as this pamphlet explains, over recent years that reputation has been substantially diminished. On a rhetorical level, the Conservative government has never...

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Whatever the weather

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society looks at a progressive strategy for climate resilience and adaptation. Climate change is already a major risk to our health, homes and infrastructure. Flooding, heatwaves and drought are more common than in the past, and they are projected to continue to become more frequent and severe....

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The final furlong

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society looks at what the public wants from the next election. Almost four years on from Labour’s historic defeat in 2019, the party is now on the brink of power. There is an increasing expectation amongst the public that Labour will win the next election, and make...

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By the people, with the people

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society looks at how the NHS can work with us to make us partners in our own health. Policy documents have, for decades, sketched out a more sustainable vision for our healthcare system – with an apparently clear consensus that this will be achieved by moving away...

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In tandem

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society puts forward the case for coordinated economic policymaking. The daunting array of economic problems facing Britain – low growth, inadequate investment, stagnant productivity, accelerating climate change and suppressed wages – are closely connected. Yet since 1997, the institutions most responsible for addressing them, the Treasury and...

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Working Nein to Five

This report from UK think tank the Fabian Society looks at what the UK can learn from Germany about work-life balance. Poor work-life balance is bad for our health, bad for the economy and steals time we could spend with loved ones. Yet it is endemic in the UK: nearly half of the workforce said...

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