BARRY WINTER reviews a new book on the Labour Church, and suggests the much-forgotten movement provides an important guide on how to remake left politics in the modern age. Huddersfield-born Labour leader, Harold Wilson famously declared that the British Labour movement owes more to Methodism than Marxism. While he was right to recognise the religious...
Boggart Hole Clough & the ILP’s Campaign for Free Speech
An area of open ground in north Manchester once hosted meetings with Keir Hardie and Emmeline Pankhurst, and became the focus of a battle for political freedom. ROD PETERS tells the tale. Boggart Hole Clough in the 1890s covered some 147 acres of rough grass, sandy slopes, fields and natural woods. The geography of the...
Sheffield Co-op Paper Marks Party Centenary
Members of the Sheffield Co-operative Party have published a special commemorative edition of the party’s old monthly newspaper to mark the national Co-op Party’s 100th anniversary this year....
Under Siege: The ILP in the Interwar Years
Despite its decline, the Independent Labour Party preserved the values of democratic socialism during the interwar years, according to ILP historian Ian Bullock in his new book, due to be published by Athabasca University Press....
Remember The Ebro: Commemorative Tour
The North West Trade Union International Committee (NWTUIC) is organising a trip to Spain next April to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of the Battle of the Ebro, the last great offensive against Franco. ...
Robert Blatchford, the Clarion and Socialism as a Way of Life
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....
Watch Online: Suffrage Stories from the Leeds Convention
The 100th anniversary of an historic Labour and Socialist Convention held in support of the Russian Revolution at Leeds Coliseum in 1917 was marked by a one-day event in the same city on 3 June this year. And now one of the key discussions from that event is available to watch online....
Cable Street Anniversary Prompts Call for Support
Hope not Hate have marked the 81st anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street with a call for donations towards its current day efforts to “present a steadfast and united opposition to fascism”. The day on 4 October 1936 when the people of the east end of London united to halt Oswald Mosley and his...
Campaign to Honour Spanish Civil War Heroes
Sculptor Frank Casey is aiming to raise £5,000 through a crowdfunding campaign to cast busts of Spanish Civil War heroes Bob Smillie and John Cornford....
Mary Barbour Statue to be Built in Govan
A statue honouring legendary campaigner and pioneering ILPer Mary Barbour will be unveiled later this year in Glasgow where she campaigned for tenants’ rights more than 100 years ago....
Alfred Martlew and the Richmond 16
ROS BATCHELOR examines the short life and sad death 100 years ago of an early ILPer and World War One CO who paid a heavy price for sticking to his conscience in defiance of military orders. On 11 July 1917, a young man was found drowned in the River Ouse at Bishopthorpe, a village south...
Prisoners of Conscience
The experiences of Fenner Brockway and Eamonn de Valera in Lincoln Prison during World War One will be discussed at an event on freedom, justice and equality at Lincoln’s Bishop Grosseteste University in September....