WWI: The ILP and the ‘Great’ War

The ILP played a major role in the anti-war and no conscription movements during the First World War. Many were gaoled, and many abused for their principled, political opposition to the conflict. Yet, not all ILPers became conscientious objectors, as IAN BULLOCK explains....

My Long Road to Labour

We often hear that radical young people are turned off by mainstream parties and parliamentary politics. Not 17-year-old LIAM COOK who moved from anarchy and apathy to Labour (and the ILP). Being born in 1996 offers me a very strange outlook on British politics. I can remember my father’s post-Thatcher enthusiasm drain as our Tony...

WWI: Remember Those Who Refused to Fight

‘We have a duty to educate future generations about the First World War,’ declared David Cameron, announcing centenary commemorations of the war’s outbreak in 1914. We have a duty to remember the whole story, argues OWEN ADAMS, including those who opposed the conflict. ...

ILP@120: The Life and Times of Clement Attlee

Clement Attlee had a very long and productive political life. DAVID CONNOLLY provides a brief sketch of the prime minister who first learned his politics in the ILP in the early years of the 20th century. Clement Richard Attlee was born on 3 January 1883, the seventh of eight children in a deeply religious, Anglican,...

ILP@120: Mabel Tothill and the Bristol ILP

Mabel Tothill was one of a small number of wealthy women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who took up the cause of socialism and joined Bristol ILP. JUNE HANNAM tells their story. Born in Liverpool in 1869, Tothill was one of a dogged group who worked tirelessly together in socialist and Labour...

Clarion House Calls for Friends

The Nelson ILP Land Society has set up a new organisation to help preserve and maintain Clarion House, the socialist cafe and tea house which has existed on the same spot in Lancashire for more than 100 years....