Keir Hardie

James Keir Hardie was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and one of the first two Labour MPs elected to the UK Parliament after the establishment of the Labour Representation Committee (later the Labour Party).

Sourced

• We are called upon at the beginning of the 20th century to decide the question propounded in the Sermon on the Mount, as to whether we will worship God or Mammon. The present day is a Mammon worshipping age. Socialism proposes to dethrone the brute god Mammon and to lift humanity into its place. I beg to submit, in this very imperfect fashion, the resolution on the paper, merely promising that the last has not been heard the Socialist movement either in the country or on the floor of this House, but that, just as sure as radicalism democratised the system of government politically in the last century, so will socialism democratise the country industrially during this century upon which we just entered.
  • House of Commons speech (1901)

Attributed

• To claim for socialism that it is a class war is to do it an injustice and indefinitely postpone its triumph. Socialism offers a platform broad enough for all to stand upon. It makes war upon a system, not upon a class.
  • Said in 1908.