STEVE THOMPSON visited a Lancashire youth hostel this summer and found a memorial to one of the ILP’s founders and pioneers that is now fighting to survive. For a long time I have intended to get to know more about Lancashire, so in June this year I looked up a youth hostel in the county...
New Labour and the Roots of Labour’s Crisis, Part 1
In the first of a two-part examination of the state of the Labour Party, HARRY BARNES looks at the roots of Jeremy Corbyn’s rise and the Party’s turmoil. He begins with New Labour’s emergence after the death of John Smith. I start by referring to a period during my own time as an MP when...
They Did Not Pass
They Did Not Pass: 300,000 Workers Say NO to Mosley is a contemporary ILP account of the Battle of Cable Street on 4 October 1936 when the people of the east end of London united to halt Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists (BUF) from marching through Stepney. The ILP was one...
Corbyn Urged to Speak Out on Syria
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been urged to speak out against “the ongoing slaughter of civilians by Russian and Assad-regime forces in Syria” by party members, Momentum activists and socialists, including many self-declared Corbyn supporters. Signatories to the open letter, published online on 3 October, declare their “wholehearted” agreement with Corbyn’s opposition to militarism and...
The Housing Crisis Analysed
The ILP has launched a new pamphlet based on its Unbalanced Britain seminar on the housing crisis held in Leeds in March this year....
Peace in the Party? The Candidates’ Plans for Unity
On 22 August, former Labour MP HARRY BARNES wrote a letter to the Guardian posing a challenge to the two candidates for the Labour Party leadership. He wrote: “Before I fill in my Labour party ballot paper, I would like to know … how (if elected) they will bring about peace and reconciliation within the...
Labour on the Brink: What Future for the Party?
With an unprecedented level of uncertainty about Labour’s future, the ILP is organising a conference for members and friends at the Rose Bowl in Leeds on 15 October to discuss the crisis and how to pull the Party together. Book now....
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Labour on the Brink: A Statement on the Leadership Crisis
A statement from the ILP’s National Administrative Council on Labour’s leadership election and a call for the Party to pull together, whoever wins....
Jayaben Desai and the ILP Tradition
Saturday 20 August 2016 marked the 40th anniversary of the day when Jayaben Desai walked out of the Grunwick photo-developing company in London, igniting a strike which drew support from thousands. GRAHAM TAYLOR remembers the woman whose dignity in dispute recalled the ethical traditions of the ILP. For Jayaben Desai, the Grunwick strike was about...
Corbyn: Labour’s Accidental Leader
IAN BULLOCK’s recurring nightmare is that the Labour Party will end up like the ILP at the end of the 1930s – with a leader who could do no wrong in the eyes of an adoring membership, but with little or no political influence, let alone power. ‘At least Jimmy Maxton was a brilliant...
Unbalanced Britain: Housing in Crisis
Unbalanced Britain: Housing in Crisis, by Quintin Bradley, Simon Jose, Ellen Robottom and Barry Winter, is a 20-page A5 pamphlet that brings together contributions from three of the main speakers at the ILP’s Unbalanced Britain seminar on the housing crisis held in Leeds in March 2016. A report of that conference is available here...