WILL BROWN reviews a fascinating and timely examination of the sources of anticolonial opinion in Britain, one that reinforces the importance of new and more honest accounts of Britain’s imperial past....
Obituary: Eric Preston 1932-2020
Our friend and comrade Eric Preston, who played a leading role in the ILP for 60 years, has died....
Historic ILP Paper to have Digital Future
One of the ILP’s earliest publications has been digitised and added to the British Newspaper Archive (BNA), according to the Scottish Labour History Society. ...
Keir Hardie & the Power of Anger
Labour’s founder is often presented as old and sad at the state of the world. But, argues PAULINE BRYAN in the Introduction to her latest volume of essays, his main motivation wasn’t sadness, but anger....
New Blog to Explore Fenner Brockway’s ‘Extraordinary Life’
The “extraordinary life and career of Fenner Brockway” is due to be explored in a new blog on the long-time ILPer and anti-war campaigner, set up by Paul Simpson of the ‘Lives on the Left’ podcast and Hazel Kent of Bishop Grosseteste University....
Orwell and the ILP
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.’...
What Now for Scottish Labour?
Last December Labour returned only one MP in Scotland for the second time in three general elections and it’s been out of power in Holyrood for 13 years. The time has come for change, say DANIEL DEERY and CIAN IRELAND, or the party faces continued decline....
Listen in to New Labour History Podcast
A new podcast series of indepth interviews about leading figures from the history of the Labour movement is now available online, thanks to the efforts of host Paul Simpson, Academic Tutor in History at Sunderland University....
Making Socialists in Great Yarmouth
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....
The Drums of Armageddon
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 …...
Anti-Fascist Plaque to be Unveiled at Clarion House
A plaque to honour members of the Independent Labour Party and the National Clarion Cycling Club who fought in the Spanish Civil War will be unveiled at Nelson ILP Clarion House on Sunday 20 October....
Bob Smillie: A Moving Tribute to a Brave Man
MARIADO HINOJOSA reports on a day of tribute and remembrance in Valencia on Tuesday 14 May when one of the ILP’s most prominent Spanish Civil War volunteers was honoured with a specially commissioned plaque in the cemetery that holds his grave. Like all stories of idealism and fraternity, this is also a story of love...