The political mood is changing north of the border, says ERNIE JACQUES. A win for the Yes campaign could have profound consequence for the Labour Party in Scotland, and the rest of the UK. Although polls on the Scottish referendum campaign show contradictory trends, and still indicate a victory for the Better Together campaign, Tuesday’s...
Tony Benn: The Left’s Flawed Figurehead
The sad death of Tony Benn has prompted comments and reflections from across the political spectrum. JONATHAN TIMBERS argues that while he was a hero to many, he was also a disastrous leader of the British left whose naive optimism and socialist nostalgia contributed to its decline. I am saddened by news of the death...
A Tale of Two Speeches
Labour leader Ed Miliband and the party’s policy review chief Jon Cruddas made separate but complementary speeches recently that merit thoughtful consideration, says BARRY WINTER....
Labour MP Calls for Greater Role for Co-ops
Labour and Co-op Party MP Jim Dobbin this week called for community co-ops to be given a greater role on local enterprise partnerships and better understanding and support the business community....
Labour’s Policy Proposals Published
The Labour Party has published its final set of policy documents for consultation and amendment by CLPs before they are adopted for its ‘One Nation manifesto’ next year. Produced by its National Policy Forum (NPF) following Labour’s policy review process, the eight papers are available on the party’s Your Britain website, and represent its current...
An Economy for Working People
‘Building an economy that works for working people’ is the title of the next seminar in a series looking at the party’s politics and direction hosted by leading Labour MPs close to the One Nation project....
The Great Stumble Forward
The proposed reforms to Labour’s links with the trade unions are both a significant step forward and a fudge, says WILL BROWN. While the changes should be welcomed (with some reservations), the prospect of a mass, democratic, participatory party is still a long way off....
An Unfit System
Whatever internal democratic reforms the Labour Party is going to make, nothing fundamental will change unless the present electoral system and parliamentary institutions are swept away, argues ERNIE JACQUES. ‘The Great Stumble Forward’, by Will Brown, sums up nicely Ed Miliband’s response to the Falkirk debacle where cooking the books and buying votes was the...
Love thy Neighbourhood
PAUL SALTONSTALL reviews a new pamphlet from IPPR which argues that to tackle deep-rooted poverty the state must improve localities....
The ILP and Labour Party Democracy
The ILP has a long history of campaigning for democratic change within the Labour Party. We were at the forefront of the early campaigns for internal reform in the late 1970s when the left agued for (and eventually won, in 1979) the right of constituency Labour Parties to deselect sitting MPs. This right, now...
My Long Road to Labour
We often hear that radical young people are turned off by mainstream parties and parliamentary politics. Not 17-year-old LIAM COOK who moved from anarchy and apathy to Labour (and the ILP). Being born in 1996 offers me a very strange outlook on British politics. I can remember my father’s post-Thatcher enthusiasm drain as our Tony...
‘Last Chance’ to Influence Labour’s Manifesto
Ann Black of the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) has circulated helpful information about the coming procedures in relation to the Labour Party’s policy formation for the 2015 general election....