On the 70th anniversary of his death aged 46, BENEDICT COOPER assesses George Orwell’s relationship with the ILP and its effect on his life, writing and politics. ‘The ILP helped shape Orwell and he helped secure, and clarify, the ILP’s once-maligned place in history.’...
East Anglia is hardly known as a bedrock of the early ILP. But as MIKE WADSWORTH illustrates in his portrait of the Great Yarmouth branch before the First World War, local ILPers were as committed and passionate in their socialism as any of the organisation’s more famous figures....
In the words of the author himself, Ian Bullock’s latest work of left-wing history, The Drums of Armageddon, is an unusual book in several ways. First, The Drums of Armageddon covers a very short period …...
IAN BULLOCK assesses the record of the ILP between the wars and seeks to draw a few lessons for Labour and the left today. All in all, he says, the influence of the radical and democratic ILP on the Labour Party of the later 20th century was an extremely positive one....
The ILP celebrates its 125th anniversary this week. BARRY WINTER marks the organisation’s brithday with a brief survey of its history and consideration of the lessons it can pass on to today’s left....
STEVE THOMPSON sketches a brief profile of Robert Blatchford, the founding editor of The Clarion newspaper, who campaigned for socialism as a way of life....
IAN BULLOCK marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution by arguing that the profoundly anti-political stance that took root among Leninists had dire and lasting consequences for socialism in the west....
With a plaque to their memory due to be re-dedicated later this month, DAVID CONNOLLY tells the story of the ILP volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and their connection to POUM....
We should remember ‘diverse Keir Hardies’, argues DAVID HOWELL, versions of the ILP founder that stretch beyond the simplicities of socialist canonisation and patronising dismissal, but never attain the dubious establishment honour of ‘national treasure’....
MARTIN WRIGHT assesses the life and contribution of David Rhys Jones, a little-known ILPer and early campaigner for Welsh socialism....
In this chapter from a new book on Keir Hardie, BARRY WINTER argues that the Labour Party founder’s political life and ethical socialism can still serve as a beacon for the left in today’s increasingly unstable world....
The pre-war ILP plays a leading role in two new books of contrasting types – one a novel set in north east England, the other a radical ramblers’ guide to the capital. MATTHEW BROWN follows the literary and geographical traces of our past....