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As the title of this paper suggests, the fundamental premise behind this train of thought is that New Labour, when dealing with welfare, utilise functionalist diagnoses and remedies for the perceived ills within British society. However, this is not to suggest that New Labour are either aware of, openly display, or even acknowledge their allegiance to such sociological trains of thought. Nor is it to suggest that functionalism is the only influence behind Labour’s policies. More it is an attempt to describe the way in which North American sociological thinking has directly or indirectly made—and still makes—an impact on the interpretations to which Tony Blair and his party attach to past, present and future social relations. To fully demonstrate this North American influence, the paper briefly looks at the works of Talcott Parsons, Amitai Etzioni and the complementary machinations of Charles Murray and Lawrence Mead. All, it is argued, have led New Labour to adopt similar welfare-to-work policies as those already implemented and operational in the United States: hence the intention of this paper is to explore any shared theoretical foundations in an all-embracing attempt to reveal and explain the origins of the relatively pubescent ‘workfare ’ schemes in Britain today