It was formed in 1932, through a merger between the National ILP Affiliation Committee (NILP) and the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda (SSIP), and ceased to exist in 1937.
Led by Frank Wise, they entered into negotiations with the SSIP about a merger, which was achieved in October 1932, forming the Socialist League.
This advocacy of a platform separate from that of the Labour Party alienated some of its prominent supporters, outside and inside the House of Commons, and by the end of 1933 G.D.H.
Its greatest effort was the Unity Campaign of 1937 which, in a response to events abroad, attempted to bring together all left-wing political forces in the country, notably the ILP and the Communist Party, in an anti-fascist united front.
The fortnightly Tribune magazine, financed by Stafford Cripps and George Strauss (Labour MP for Lambeth North), was set up as the mouthpiece for the movement.
For several weeks thereafter speakers for the campaign—Jimmie Maxton, Fenner Brockway, Harry Pollitt, Nye Bevan, Ellen Wilkinson, Stafford Cripps, Barbara Betts, Bill Mellor and Michael Foot—spoke at meetings up and down the country.