PAUL SALVESON reviews The Dignity of Labour by Labour MP Jon Cruddas, a fascinating engagement with the changing nature of employment and a thoughtful search for a popular, progressive politics that can provide a clear alternative to the Tories....
A Northern Light in Labour’s Gloom
Inverness ILPer LEWIS WHYTE reflects on his experience as a Labour candidate in the north of Scotland during the recent elections where the party under Anas Sarwar is slowly building a base for the future....
Celebrating Selina at Unity Hall
It’s been a long, hard journey for the Selina Cooper project team in Nelson, from a dusty archive in the local library to a long-delayed public launch at one of the town’s oldest buildings. But with Covid restrictions finally easing, their struggle to commemorate the locality’s proud socialist history is finally coming to fruition....
Bordered Minds: A Century of Division in Northern Ireland
GARY KENT reflects on the 100th anniversary of partition on 3 May and the distorted thinking that for decades dominated left-wing approaches to the province, the Troubles and the sectarian divide. ...
Brexitland: A New Landscape for the Left
BEN SALTONSTALL reviews a powerful and timely study of the influence of identity politics on recent British history. It’s an analysis the left must consider if Labour is ever to rise from the ashes of 2019....
Safe Haven: How Kurdistan Can Point the Way for Labour
It is 30 years since Tory prime minister John Major was moved to protect Iraqi Kurds from Saddam Hussein’s brutal slaughter. The safe haven initiative provides a telling example for Keir Starmer’s Labour as it rethinks its foreign policy, says GARY KENT....
ILP Profiles: Ethel Carnie Holdsworth – Poet, Campaigner & Pioneering Writer
ROGER SMALLEY recounts the life of a Blackburn ILPer who wanted her work ‘to sting people into rebellion against poverty and fire their hearts with a cause’. Ethel Carnie left an impressive legacy of dissent that continues to have relevance today....
Fade to Mauve: Starmer’s Leadership One Year On
Easter Sunday marks 12 months since Keir Starmer was elected Labour leader on 4 April 2020. DAVID CONNOLLY assesses his first-year performance and suggests a way forward for the left....
How the ILP’s Vision Created the Labour Party
It is a common misconception that trade unions founded the Labour Party in 1900. Not so, says JOHN H GRIGG. It was the ILP that drove the initiative....
Skewering the Social Mobility Myth
Politicians of all shades trumpet the ideal of social mobility as a mark of a fair society. It’s a claim picked apart by Selina Todd in her rich and compelling new book, Snakes and Ladders. MARIA GOULDING is impressed by a powerful manifesto for change....
ILP Profiles: Johnnie Duxbury – The Quiet Dedication of an Ethical Socialist
Like many working-class socialists, Blackburn ILPer Johnnie Duxbury left only a faint footprint on the historical record. Yet his life of brave activism and everyday kindness ‘enriches our understanding of socialist commitment’, argues ROGER SMALLEY....
Throwing a Spotlight on ILP Women
To mark International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we are highlighting the lives of nine ILP women who played important roles in the early years of the Labour movement. All of them were tireless campaigners for women’s votes and gender equality, and against war and poverty....