How would society change if no-one needed to work to stay alive? That was the question Edward Carpenter set out to answer almost 130 years ago in an essay titled ‘Transitions to Freedom’. Would it hail a new collectivist phase? And would that then lead to full individual and social liberty?...
For KATH CONNOLLY, Robert Gildea’s oral history of the year-long dispute is a much-needed bottom-up record that finally highlights the experiences of those most affected – the miners, their families and their communities....
Despite years of austerity and workplace exploitation, across the economy as a whole most workers are still not trade union members. CHRIS WILSON wonders why and suggests ways to halt the decline....
Joe Cragie was a founder member of Bermondsey ILP, rising from poverty to prominence as leader of the council. He played a crucial role in the socialist successes of Ada and Alfred Salter, but until now has remained hidden from history. GRAHAM TAYLOR uncovers his story....
The ILP’s 130th anniversary year may be drawing to a close but there’s still time to buy our commemorative history pamphlets – The ILP: Past & Present parts 1 and 2 – which tell the inspiring story of an ethical socialist organisation born in the last decades of the 19th century....
CHRIS WILSON surveys today’s exponents of an old left tradition still helping to promote the importance of ethical values in driving progressive change....
The debate on Gaza within the Labour Party has polarised around the whether or not to support calls for a ceasefire. But this isn’t a binary choice, argues WILL BROWN, as recent developments show....
The idea of Labour as a broad based political church has been around as long as the party. But it’s come under attack in recent years like never before. NEIL RHODES considers how we can fight back....
The second part of a new updated version of The ILP: Past & Present has been published to mark the 130th anniversary of the organisation’s founding in January 1893. This brief history, first printed 30 years ago to coincide with our centenary celebrations, has been revised and brought fully up to date in a...
Various Labour leaders have been and gone since she first joined the party more than 40 years ago, but come election time MARY HULL has always been an enthusiastic, door-knocking campaigner. This time is different. Here she explains why the Starmer leadership has tested her loyalty to the limit....
As a lukewarm supporter of proportional representation, BEN SALTONSTALL is unimpressed by the left’s current enthusiasm for voting reform. PR matters as one part of a broader push for economic, social and democratic change, not because it will save the left....
The ILP’s 130th anniversary will be marked by a major new exhibition due to open at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford on Wednesday 16 August....