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....
ILP@120: The Life and Times of Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee had a very long and productive political life. DAVID CONNOLLY provides a brief sketch of the prime minister who first learned his politics in the ILP in the early years of the 20th century. Clement Richard Attlee was born on 3 January 1883, the seventh of eight children in a deeply religious, Anglican,...
ILP@120: Mabel Tothill and the Bristol ILP
Mabel Tothill was one of a small number of wealthy women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who took up the cause of socialism and joined Bristol ILP. JUNE HANNAM tells their story. Born in Liverpool in 1869, Tothill was one of a dogged group who worked tirelessly together in socialist and Labour...
Ralph Miliband and the Left Today
The enduring legacy of Ralph Miliband and his Marxist and democratic ideals will be the focus of discussion at the first Leeds Taking Soundings event of 2014....
ILP@120: Alf Mattison – Leeds Archivist and Labour Activist
A lifelong ILPer, Alf Mattison is best known as a local historian, and for his Leeds Labour archives, source of material on the movement’s early years. MICHAEL MEADOWCROFT discovers the man behind the footnotes. Socialism has always needed its scribes and archivists. Alf Mattison was both, and without him Labour history in Leeds would be...
ILP@120: Bob Edwards – A Lifetime on the Left
From Liverpool ILP to the House of Commons via Russia, Spain and the USA, Bob Edwards was politically active all his life. CHRIS HALL retraces his long journey. Bob Edwards had a remarkably long political life. He was a member of the ILP ‘Guild of Youth’, then became an ILP member and a Labour Party...
Unbalanced Britain: What Can We Do?
Our society has been deranged by neoliberal capitalism, says BARRY WINTER. How can the creative, reflective forces of the progressive left begin to counter the huge imbalances in power and wealth?...
Nelson Mandela: Remember the Man and the Struggle
The death of Nelson Mandela in South Africa has rightly led to a flood of tributes from public figures all over the world. But we should remember that change in South Africa was the result of long, hard political struggle....
Encompass All, Change Nothing?
‘Change: How?’ was the deliberately open question posed by the recent Compass conference in London. But the event raised another question too – has the organisation changed so much it’s lost its political bearings? MATTHEW BROWN reports. It was nearly three years ago when Compass decided to change. Set up in 2003 to galvanise the...
The Case For Public Ownership
Arguments for public ownership did not start with Sidney Webb, nor end with Tony Blair, says HARRY BARNES. Once we create the conditions, we might be surprised at just how revolutionary our gradualism can become....