The ILP celebrates its 125th anniversary this week. BARRY WINTER marks the organisation’s brithday with a brief survey of its history and consideration of the lessons it can pass on to today’s left....
With Orwell, Cottman and Quinto in Catalonia
ILP Chair DAVID CONNOLLY reports on his visit to Catalonia last year to mark the 80th anniversary of George Orwell’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War. George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is one of the great books of political literature of the 20th century. It records his time in Spain as a volunteer with the...
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....
Understanding Corbyn’s Politics
BARRY WINTER examines the political origins of Jeremy Corbyn’s politics, asking: what are its ideological roots and what is the nature of his leadership?...
Jack Lawson: A Man’s Life
Harry Barnes’s review of Jack Lawson’s autobiography, A Man’s Life, has been re-published on the North East Labour History website. Like many of his era, Lawson first became politically active through the ILP which he joined in 1904....
Call Mr Robeson Returns to Croydon
Call Mr Robeson, Tayo Aluko’s portrayal of the famous actor, singer and civil rights campaigner, returns to Croydon in south London on Friday 24 November....
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....
1917: Revolution Then and Now
‘The revolution is dead, long live the revolution’ is the theme of an afternoon seminar in London on Saturday 21 October to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution in 1917....
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...