Unite, the largest union in Britain, has come up with an imaginative response to the current austerity crisis by creating a community arm that supports people hard hit by the cuts. GERRY LAVERY reports on how it helps them campaign for change. The aim of Unite Community is to unionise and embrace people “being pushed...
Labour Needs to Push its Progressive Electoral Programme
HARRY BARNES has analysed Labour’s electoral programme and believes it starts to ‘open the door’ towards democratic socialism. He’s also provided a readable 16-part summary for those who haven’t yet ploughed through the 200-page document. ...
Now for the Hard Part
While the No victory in the Scottish referendum was a huge relief to many, the political minefield the campaign left behind means there is much hard work to do before we’ll see any renewal of Labour and the UK left. WILL BROWN reports. The No vote means that we have avoided many problems independence would...
Unbalanced Britain: This Sorry State
BARRY WINTER assesses the work of David Marquand and considers what it can offer a left desperately seeking some answer to society’s massive imbalance in power and wealth....
March to End UK’s Worst Ever Pay Squeeze
The Trades Union Congress is calling on thousands of people to join its three demonstrations this Saturday and rally for an end to poverty wages and a ‘real economic recovery’ that doesn’t favour the rich over ordinary employees. The three marches are being held simultaneously in London, Glasgow and Belfast “to send a message loud...
WWI: Harold Croft and the Northampton Anti-War Campaign
JOHN BUCKELL describes the life and times of Northampton ILPer Harold Croft, who faced prison, hardship and abuse for being a conscientious objector and anti-war activist. On 9 November 1920, at statutory meetings all over England, borough councils elected mayors and aldermen. Almost always these were a formality, the results agreed in advance between the...
Unbalanced Britain: What Future for Young People?
GREG ROBERTS is an apprentice accountant and youth campaigner in north east Derbyshire. In June he spoke to the ILP’s day school on Unbalanced Britain about life for young people in these austere times. Despite being born and spending half of my early childhood in Sheffield, I have, for the past eight years, lived on...
WWI: Down with the War!
On 6 August 1914, just nine days after the start of what came to be known as World War One, the ILP published a front page appeal in its weekly journal, Labour Leader, imploring the “workers of Great Britain” to unite with those across Europe and resist the government’s call to arms....
ILP Profiles: Morgan Jones and the First World War
WAYNE DAVID recounts the life of Morgan Jones, an ILP councillor and anti-war activist who emerged from the hardship of prison to become the first conscientious objector elected to Parliament. Morgan Jones was born on 3 May 1885 in the village of Gelligaer at the foot of Gelligaer mountain. His birthplace was the small Rhos...
ILP Profiles: Clifford Allen – The ILP’s Enigmatic Thinker
DAVID HOWELL recounts the life and career of Clifford Allen, an ILP chairman and editor between the wars, whose marginalised political vision was, perhaps, a lost alternative for the party and the progressive movement. Reginald Clifford Allen was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, on 9 May 1889. His father owned a drapery business; his mother died...
Unbalanced Britain: Wealth, Power and Poverty
ILP members and friends gathered at the Circle conference centre in Sheffield at the end of June for the first in a series of one-day workshops on ‘Unbalanced Britain’....
Unbalanced Britain – Young People and the Living Wage
The living wage and the future for young people will be the focus of an ILP seminar on Unbalanced Britain in Sheffield next month. The crash of 2008 and its aftermath revealed the self-destructive and self-serving character of neoliberal capitalism. The high and mighty bankers and financiers, and their allies, stood exposed for unleashing an...