The Socialists and the associated Federation of Labour (the "Red Feds") refused to attend, however, saying that they would continue to advocate their more hard-line positions.
The labour movement was split, with hard-liners praising the strikers and moderates condemning the action as dangerous and misguided.
The United Labour Party took the latter path, believing that cautious negotiation was more effective than militant action.
The Remnant officially repudiated the more Marxist tendencies that the Social Democrats had inherited from the Socialist Party, and promoted arbitration as a better alternative to strike action.
The Remnant considered itself to be vindicated when, later in the year, the Social Democrats were thrown into disarray by a heavy-handed government response to dockworkers' and miners' strikes.
[4] Gradually, this increased co-operation caused the ULP Remnant and the SDP to conclude that full unification was not impossible, and in 1916, the two finally came together (along with various independents) to form the Labour Party, which still survives today.