Stewart Wood, special adviser to consecutive Labour Party leaders Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, said that 'OULC is held up as an exemplar of what needs to be done.'
During his visit to Oxford in July 2009 the Prime Minister Gordon Brown was reported as having praised OULC's 'brilliant contribution to progressive politics in the University, the city and the country.
'[2] The club was instrumental in returning Andrew Smith to Parliament for Oxford East at the 2010 General Election with a 4.1% swing to Labour, the largest in England outside London.
Throughout the year it hosts a range of speaker, social, discussion, and campaigning events, as well as producing a termly magazine called Look Left.
When David Lewis came to Oxford, the Labour Club was a tame organisation adhering to Christian activism, or the not-quite-so-scrappy-socialist theories of people such as R. H. Tawney and his book The Acquisitive Society.
[4] The Oxford newspaper The Isis noted Lewis' leadership ability at this early stage in his career in their 7 February 1934 issue: "The energy of these University Socialists is almost unbelievable.
Lewis and future Ontario Co-operative Commonwealth Federation leader Ted Jolliffe, organised a noisy protest against the fascist, by simply planting Labour Club members in the dance hall that Joyce was speaking in, and causing a commotion, as groups of two and three left making much noise on the creaking wooden floors.
[9] When Lewis returned to Canada in the summer of 1935, there really wasn't anyone to replace him, to keep the communists at bay[10] as The Isis noted: "The Labour may have rejected fusion [with the October Club] but the matter is not yet settled.
[10][12] The national Labour Party appointed Janet Royall, to head an inquiry into allegations of antisemitism within the Club made in February 2016.
[13][14][15] The report – which was not published in full but was leaked to the media in August 2016 – concluded that antisemitic incidents had occurred and some Jewish members felt uncomfortable attending the Club, but that the extent of the problem was hard to verify.
In Trinity term 2009, OULC hosted the then current Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, David Miliband.
This made a huge contribution to Oxford East's position of having the highest voter contact rate of anywhere in the country (more than Wales, Scotland and the North-East put together).
The dinner commemorates the contribution and life of John Smith, the former Labour party leader, who died suddenly in 1994.
In February 2012, OULC voted by 20 to 4 to rejoin Labour Students citing the progress made by the leadership of the organisation in improving accountability and democracy.
Following the recreation of Labour Students in 2022, OULC narrowly voted to support a motion in favour of engaging in their upcoming internal elections by endorsing candidates.
There have been many Labour presidents, starting with John Grogan in the early 1980s, and OULC candidates have in recent years been successful in the 1999 (Anneliese Dodds), 2000 (Kirsty McNeill), 2004 (Emma Norris), 2005 (Alan Strickland) and 2006 (Martin McCluskey) elections.
Whilst the Club no longer runs official candidates, OUSU's executive committee and delegate body has also had a Labour presence.
In the 2019 election, Rosie Sourbut, who had been the co-chair earlier that year,[27] ran as the Labour candidate in Oxford West and Abingdon.