Progressive Britain Ltd

Labour-aligned company and New Labour pressure group, formerly Progress Limited

Progressive Britain Ltd
Logo
Type	Private company limited by guarantee without share capital
Founded	3 October 1995
Founder(s)	Derek Draper Paul Richards Liam Byrne
Location	3rd Floor, 86–90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE
Registration	Company number 03109611
Key people	Adam Langleben (executive director) Lord Liddle (director)
Website	https://www.progressonline.org.uk/

Progressive Britain Ltd (company number 03109611) is a British private company limited by guarantee that is the legal vehicle for the Labour-aligned pressure group long known as Progress. Incorporated on 3 October 1995, it is registered for “activities of political organisations” and remains active.

The organisation was founded as a New Labour vehicle to support Tony Blair’s leadership. It traded as Premiumunit Limited (3 October–20 November 1995) and Progress Limited (20 November 1995–28 July 2021) before adopting its present name after merging with Policy Network in 2021. In January 2026 it publicly resumed the Progress brand for its thirtieth anniversary while the company name stayed Progressive Britain Ltd.

Progress has operated as a factional organiser, magazine publisher, events body and candidate-training network on the right of the Labour Party. Its principal historic funder was David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, who bankrolled the group for two decades until 2017. Critical reporting from pro-Palestinian and left publications has treated the company as part of an interlocking Blairite and pro-Israel personnel network inside Labour.

History

The company was incorporated on 3 October 1995 by nominee firms Instant Companies Limited and Swift Incorporations Limited. On 12 October 1995 Derek Draper became a director; he resigned on 15 July 1998. The public organisation Progress was launched in 1996 by Derek Draper, Paul Richards and Liam Byrne to support Tony Blair’s modernising project.

Derek Draper was later central to the 1998 “Lobbygate” affair around the New Labour lobbying firm LLM Communications. Subsequent company directors included Darren Murphy, Patrick Diamond, Robert Philpot, Jennifer Gerber, Stephen Twigg, Jonathan Mendelsohn, Richard Angell and Nathan Yeowell.

In May 2021 Progress merged with Policy Network, associated with Peter Mandelson, and relaunched as Progressive Britain. LabourList reported that the new platform would pursue “critical thinking, political education and policy-making” and “the intellectual revitalisation of the centre-left”, while internal organising would run through Labour to Win. The company name changed from Progress Limited to Progressive Britain Ltd on 28 July 2021.

Roger Liddle wrote in January 2026 that the group had “announced that we would once again be known as Progress”, presenting the move as a return to organisational clarity rather than nostalgia.

Company structure

Progressive Britain Ltd is a private company limited by guarantee without share capital. Status: Active. Registered office: 3rd Floor, 86–90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE (changed from New Derwent House, 69–73 Theobalds Road, London WC1X 8TA on 4 July 2025).

Last accounts: total exemption full to 31 December 2024. Next accounts due by 30 September 2026. Confirmation statement made 6 October 2025. No registered mortgages or charges have been reported on commercial company-data sites drawing on Companies House.

Commercial compilers list 2024 cash of about £96,000, current assets of about £193,000 and net worth of about £131,000, with four employees.

People

The organisation’s own site names Adam Langleben as executive director. He was previously head of communications at the Jewish Leadership Council, a Labour councillor in Barnet, national secretary of the Jewish Labour Movement, and co-led the referral of the Labour Party to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Deputy director Tom Collinge previously worked at New Philanthropy Capital and The New Statesman.

Current directors

Current directors of Progressive Britain Ltd

Name	Role	Appointed	Notes
Catherine Carberry	Director	16 January 2020	British; born October 1950
Baroness Goudie	Director	11 March 2021	British; born September 1946
Adam Langleben	Director	29 February 2024	British; born February 1987; executive director
Lord Liddle	Director	3 September 2019	British; born June 1947; listed by Endole as a person with significant control
Terence Paul	Director	27 March 2023	British; born May 1968
Stephanie Thomas	Director	27 March 2023	British; born March 1956
Emily Wallace	Director	16 June 2021	British; born August 1971

Source of table data: Companies House officers list.

Former officers

Former officers, including formation nominees

Name	Role	Appointed	Resigned
Instant Companies Limited	Nominee director	3 October 1995	12 October 1995
Swift Incorporations Limited	Nominee secretary / nominee director	3 October 1995	12 October 1995
Chalfen Secretaries Limited	Secretary	12 October 1995	1 August 2012
Derek Draper	Director	12 October 1995	15 July 1998
Darren Murphy	Director	15 July 1998	1 July 2001
Patrick Diamond	Director	1 January 2000	1 July 2001
Robert Philpot	Director	1 July 2001	15 October 2019
Philip Taylor	Director	1 July 2001	26 September 2001
Jennifer Gerber	Director	17 November 2006	15 October 2019
Stephen Twigg	Director	25 January 2007	17 October 2016
Lord Mendelsohn	Director	25 January 2007	16 April 2019
Westco Nominees Limited	Secretary	1 August 2012	15 January 2015
Richard Angell	Director	23 September 2015	31 December 2018
Margaret Prosser	Director	28 August 2019	17 August 2023
Nathan Yeowell	Director	8 October 2019	29 February 2024
Gemma Doyle	Director	27 March 2023	29 September 2023

Source of table data: Companies House officers list.

Funding

For most of its life the organisation depended on David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, supermarket heir, Blair-era science minister and Labour peer. The Guardian reported that in 2016 alone he gave £260,000 to Progress, and that after the 2017 general election he would “no longer provide financial backing to party political causes”, forcing the group to seek members’ money.

LabourList quoted Richard Angell: “Progress is extremely grateful to Lord Sainsbury for the funding he has provided for over two decades. We always knew it would not last forever.” David Sainsbury said: “I’ve been proud to support progressive ideas and organisations like Progress and I wish them well for the future.”

On 13 February 2014 the Electoral Commission fined Progress Ltd £6,000 for accepting six donations totalling £390,000 from David Sainsbury between December 2011 and April 2013 while he was not on a UK electoral register. Movement for Change was fined £5,500 for related donations. The Commission said the groups had acted in good faith, self-reported and co-operated, but had “failed to check a donor was on the electoral register”.

The Independent noted at the time that union leaders “do not care for Progress” and that an internal Unite document had framed the struggle against the group as a battle for “Labour’s soul”.

Zionism and Israel advocacy

Personnel and donor links have repeatedly connected the company to Britain’s Labour-facing pro-Israel organisations.

Adam Langleben, now executive director and a company director, was national secretary of the Jewish Labour Movement and head of communications at the Jewish Leadership Council. The group’s own “About Us” page records both posts and states that he “co-led the referral of the Labour Party to the Equality & Human Rights Commission”. Jewish Currents described Progressive Britain as a “Blairite think tank” led by Langleben, “who has also held roles with the conservative Jewish Leadership Council and the pro-Israel Jewish Labour Movement.” A left-wing Labour insider told the magazine: “These groups are fundamentally politically aligned… Even the word ‘alliance’ separates them out too much—there’s a total overlap in personnel and in policy.”

Jonathan Mendelsohn, a company director from 2007 to 2019, was formerly chair of Labour Friends of Israel. The Guardian reported in 2007 that Mendelsohn “was formerly chair of Labour Friends of Israel” and that the Jewish Chronicle had written: “At ease in the corridors of power, Mendelsohn has the contacts and know-how to advance Israel’s case in his LFI role.” He co-founded the New Labour lobbying firm LLM Communications with Neal Lawson and Ben Lucas.

The Electronic Intifada has treated historic funding by David Sainsbury as part of the same network. Jody McIntyre wrote that Progress “was funded by David Sainsbury, a government minister under Blair who was seated at a ‘top table’ during a Labour Friends of Israel fundraising dinner attended by the then prime minister,” and that the group “is currently led by Adam Langleben, a former national secretary of the Jewish Labour Movement.”

Declassified UK has mapped a wider pattern in which Labour MPs accept funds and funded trips from Labour Friends of Israel, ELNET and individual pro-Israel donors, and has noted that Red Capital, owned by former Labour Friends of Israel chairman Jonathan Mendelsohn, has funded MPs.

Criticism

Left, socialist and pro-Palestinian publications argue that Progress / Progressive Britain functions as a machine to keep Labour’s foreign policy aligned with Israel and to sideline the party’s left.

Jewish Currents placed the company inside the apparatus that, after October 2023, “managed to contain internal dissent over Israel’s war on Gaza,” linking Adam Langleben’s dual roles to candidate selection and the quashing of pro-Palestine lists.

The Electronic Intifada tracked the rename from Progress to Progressive Britain and argued that a change of Labour leader would not, by itself, alter Palestine policy because leading successors were themselves products of the same faction. It recorded that one of Wes Streeting’s first jobs “was a part-time role at Progress, a Labour Party pressure group set up in 1996 to support Tony Blair’s bid for power.”

Jonathan Cook, writing in Middle East Eye in 2021, did not confine his critique to this company but described the “factional machinery” of the Labour right and pro-Israel groups after Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. He wrote that “pro-Israel groups were able to push through a new definition of antisemitism – one originally advanced behind the scenes by the Israeli government – that switched the focus away from protecting Jews from hatred to protecting Israel from criticism.” Cook argued that Keir Starmer “blurred the distinctions between criticism of Israel and antisemitism” and coined “anti-Zionist antisemitism”, “which seemed designed to conflate criticisms of Israel’s state ideology of Jewish supremacism with racism towards Jews.” The result, he wrote, was that “Israel’s apartheid character, its vigorous lobby and support for a boycott are all off the table.”

Union hostility predates the Gaza war. The Independent recorded in 2014 that Paul Kenny of the GMB had threatened to use the union’s block vote to have Progress banned from the Labour Party, while Unite called the fight a battle for “Labour’s soul”.

See also

• Labour Party
• Labour Friends of Israel
• Jewish Labour Movement
• Policy Network
• Peter Mandelson
• David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville
• Labour Together

External links

• Official website
• Companies House: Progressive Britain Ltd
• Companies House officers