They Did Not Pass
The 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street will be celebrated on Sunday 2 October with a commemorative march and rally, and numerous other events organised by Cable Street 75 and supported by more than 40 organisations.
Assemble: 11.30am at Aldgate East (Junction of Braham Street and Leman Street)
Rally: 1pm at St George in the East Gardens, Canon Street, off Cable Street (http://g.co/maps/mnppe)
The march and rally is just one of several events taking place on 2 October. Others include:
- Protest and Survive – a photography and poster exhibition
- Grand Union Orchestra of East London (www.grandunionyouth.org.uk)
- Book launch – five new publications about the Battle of Cable Street
- ‘They Shall Not Pass’ – an evening of celebration and entertainment at Wilton’s Music Hall, including Billy Bragg, Michael Rosen, Shappi Khorsandi and The Men They Couldn’t Hang (www.battleofcablestreet.org.uk)
Hope not Hate have also produced a special Cable Street pamphlet, sponsored by Unison, to mark the 75th anniversary. The 28-page full-colour magazine includes maps, rare photos and stories from the day.
£4 (including p&p) from www.hopenothate.org.uk/shop/cablest or by sending cheque or postal order for £4 to:
Searchlight Educational Trust
PO Box 67502
London NW3 9RE.
Full details of all events can be found at: www.hopenothate.org.uk or cablestreet75.org.uk
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Colne Valley Labour Party 120th Anniversary Celebrations
Thursday 21 July, 7.30pm
The Watershed (behind Monsoon)
Bridge Street
Slaithwaite
HD7 5JN
Guest speaker:
Lord David Clark, author of Colne Valley: radicalism to socialism and MP for Colne Valley 1970-1974
Plus:
- launch of souvenir booklet Looking Back, Looking Forward: Colne Valley Socialism 1891-2011
- socialist songs from the East Lancashire Clarion Choir
- guest appearances by historical socialist figures including Victor Grayson and Jessie Smith
- start of the Colne Valley Labour Party quilt
- pre-meeting historical walk and talk around Slaithwaite – meet 6.30pm at Watershed
- sale of books and Colne Valley Labour Party centenary plates and mugs.
Please bring your mementoes: photos, newspaper cuttings, badges.
Suggested donation: £2 on the door. All proceeds to constituency funds.
More info from Paul Salveson on 07795 008691 or paul@paulsalveson.com
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120th Anniversary Birthday Garden Party
Sunday 24 July, 1pm to 4.30pm
Bank Top
90a Radcliffe Road
Golcar
Huddersfield
HD7 4EZ
Activities include:
- Tolstoyan Treasure Trail
- co-operative capers and games
- solidaristic sandwiches
- Marxist meringues
- socialistic steam trains on a garden railway
- special guests, including the ghost of Victor Grayson
- stirring music
Suggested donation: £5 adults; accompanied children free – includes food and drink. All proceeds to constituency funds.
How to get there: Bank Top is nearer Slaithwaite than Golcar; about a 15 minute walk from the railway station (parking is limited). Bank Top is beyond the trees, past the garages and terraces, and on the left (if you are coming from Slaithwaite). Look out for the red flags!
Fancy dress for any period between 1891 and 2011 is encouraged but not essential. Prizes for the best/worst dressed socialist
RSVP to Paul Salveson and Hester Dunlop, Bank Top, 90a Radcliffe Road, Golcar, Huddersfield HD7 4EZ. paul@paulsalveson.com
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Celebrating Clarion House
All ILP members, friends and supporters are invited to a special presentation to volunteers at Nelson’s Clarion House on Saturday 24th July marking nearly a century of association between the ramblers’ tea shop run by members of the Nelson ILP Land Society and the national ILP.
Members of the ILP’s national administrative council will present Clarion volunteers with a framed copy of the ILP 21st Anniversary Certificate (itself a representation of the founding conference of the ILP in 1893), confirming the ILP’s continued support for those whose hard work and commitment keeps the Clarion House functioning as a hostelry for visitors to the Lancashire town and Pendle Way.
2.30pm, Sunday 24 July 2011
Clarion House
Jinny Lane
Newchurch-in-Pendle
Lancashire
BB12 9LL
Read more about Clarion House: www.clarionhouse.org.uk
Let the ILP know if you’re thinking of attending: info@independentlabour.org.uk; 07799 502 937
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International Brigade Memorial Trust
Manchester Town Hall
Sculpture Hall
11.00am–12.30pm
Saturday July 16th
The International Brigade Memorial Trust was formed in 2002 from the veterans of the International Brigade Association, the Friends of the I.B.A., representatives of the Marx Memorial Library, and historians specialising in the Spanish Civil War. Its aims are:
“To educate the public in the history of the men and women who fought in the International Brigades and in the medical and other support services in the Spanish Civil War. In particular, by preserving and cataloguing valuable historical material relating hereto and by making such material available to the public.”
“To foster good citizenship by remembering those who have fallen in the Spanish Civil War by preserving, maintaining and assisting in the construction of war memorials.”
2pm: Walk round Radical Manchester with Michael Herbert, ‘Red Flag Walks’
web: http://www.international-brigades.org.uk/index.htm
email: secretary@international-brigades.org.uk
For more information contact: Dolores 0161 224 2013 or Hilary 0161 224 1747
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Combatting the Coalition, Constructing an Alternative
The 2011 ILP Weekend School
Saturday 7 & Sunday 8 May 2011
On the agenda:
- the politics of the Conservative-led government and the growing opposition to their cuts
- the challenges facing the Labour leadership
- rebuilding the party’s internal democracy
- the ILP’s political perspective.
Discussion, debate, deliberation.
Put the date in your diaries and plan a weekend by the sea.
Accommodation: special rate for Saturday night: £25.00
(additional nights at £43)
The Esplanade Hotel
Belmont Road
Scarborough
YO11 2AA
Tel. 01723 360382
Email: enquiries@theesplanade.co.uk
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The State of the State
The role and nature of the state has become a central feature of British political argument – should it be an ‘EasyJet state’ or a ‘John Lewis state’? Should the state give way for the arrival of the ‘big society’, or forms of mutualism or associationalism?
The discussion group Leeds Taking Soundings is hosting a meeting on the state of the state with Michael Kenny, professor of politics at the University of Sheffield. Kenny’s recent article on the big society can be found on the Open Democracy website.
The State of the State
6pm Wednesday 23 February 2011
Old Broadcasting House
Leeds Met University
Leeds
Further details: b.winter@leedsmet.ac.uk
www.takingsoundingsleeds.blogspot.com
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March for the Alternative: 26 March 2011
The TUC is organising a national march against the cuts on March 26th 2011.
Initial artwork for leaflets and posters for the event can be found in the resources section on the TUC website: www.tuc.org.uk/theme/index.cfm?theme=alltogether
TUC regions will be helping co-ordinate transport, but they will also use this website for more details so keep checking. They will be posting much more about the march in days and weeks to come.
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Labour, the coalition and the ILP perspective
The 2011 ILP Weekend School
Save the date:
7/8 May 2011
Note the venue:
The Esplanade Hotel
Belmont Road
Scarborough
YO11 2AA
Tel. 01723 360382
Email: enquiries@theesplanade.co.uk
Discussion, debate, deliberation.
Put the date in your diaries and plan a weekend by the sea.
More details to follow, including information on how to book your place.
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Other Events
Why Inequality Matters
A lecture by Professor Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level,
in memory of Richard Brown (Dept of Sociology, Durham University 1966-1993).
Monday 8th November 2010
St John’s College (http://goo.gl/maps/wnDg)
South Bailey
Durham
6:30pm – FREE
Drinks and nibbles will be provided.
The Spirit Level: Why equality is better for everyone, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, was published in hardback by Penguin in March 2009 and paperback in February 2010.
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Three months in Spain
The British Battalion at Madrigueras and Jarama
Saturday 7 August, 2pm
People’s History Museum
Left Bank
Spinningfields
Manchester M3 3ER
FREE ENTRY
Historian Dr. Richard Baxell lectures on the day-to-day experiences of the British and Irish volunteers in The Spanish Civil War, during the early part of 1937.
The lecture will include audio and video clips from some of the interviews with Brigaders and will cover the formation of the battalion, its baptism of fire at Jarama and its subsequent recovery and rebuilding before returning to action at the Battle of Brunete in July 1937.
As Baxell says: ‘The period of training – let alone combat – must have been an immense culture shock to the members of the battalion, almost all of whom spoke no Spanish and had rarely travelled, even within Britain. Factor in an unfamiliar diet, woefully insufficient and often sub-standard weaponry and a general lack of appropriate military experience and you begin to understand the scale of the appalling task facing the British Battalion in their first experience of combat.’
Richard Baxell, with Jim Jump and Angela Jackson, compiled the ANTIFASCISTAS exhibition for the International Brigade Memorial Trust (see below). He is also the author of British Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, the history of the British Battalion in the International Brigades.
More details of Richard’s work can be found at www.richardbaxell.info
In addition, Civil War songs will be performed by Manchester group The Maddonnas.
For more details of the event contact: Dolores Long: 0161 226 2013 or Hilary Jones: 0161 224 1747
To book a place, please telephone the People’s History Museum on 0161 838 9190 or email:info@phm.org.uk
ANTIFACISTAS
Antifascistas is the exhibition commissoned by the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT) on the British and Irish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and will be at the People’s History Museum from 6-31st August.
For more information on the work of the International Brigade Memorial Trust
email: secretary@international-brigades.org.uk
tel: 020 8555 6674
web: www.international-brigades.org.uk
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ILP Weekend 2010
After the election, what next for the left?
ILP Round Table Seminar
Esplanade Hotel, Scarborough
Saturday 5th – 6th June 2010
Admission free – but advance registration necessary
Session 1: Saturday 5 June 2.30 – 5.30pm
Reflecting on the election: Introductory talk and round table discussion
- What is our assessment of the results?
- What are the challenges facing the Labour Party post-election?
- And where does it leave the left project in general?
Session 2: Sunday 6 June 9.30am- 1.00pm
Implications for the ILP and the left: Introductory talk, towards an ILP perspective and round table discussion
- Where does the election leave the ILP?
- How do we reformulate our political views?
- What forms of political activity does it imply for the left?
Attendance
Attendance is free but registration is necessary.
Accommodation is available at the Esplanade Hotel and can be booked via the ILP. The cost, for bed and breakfast, is £30 for the Saturday night. There are a limited number of places at the hotel, so please book early.
Coffee and biscuits will be served during each session. Lunchtime snacks can be purchased at the hotel bar and evening meals can be booked at the hotel restaurant.
Closing date for booking : Friday 14 May
Booking and further information
Write to:
David Connolly
1 Exeter Close
Great Lumley
Chester-le Street
Co Durham DH3 4LJ
Email:
davidconnolly124@hotmail.co.uk
info@independentlabour.org.uk
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Compass Conference 2010
The Robin Cook Memorial Conference
A New Hope
Saturday 12 June 2010
Institute of Education, London
Ideas, campaigns and coalitions needed to create a progressive consensus for the 21st century
Speakers include
Neal Lawson, Chair, Compass; Jon Cruddas MP; Polly Toynbee, The Guardian; Mehdi Hassan, New Statesman; John Harris, The Guardian; Jon Trickett MP; Paul Mason, BBC Newsnight; Fiona Millar; and many more
Click here for more information.
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Leeds Soundings
The Soundings discussion group in Leeds has been hosting a series of public meetings on a range of topics from rebranding the Tories to climate change.
For details of forthcoming meetings go to www.takingsoundingsleeds.blogspot.com/
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ILP Weekend 2009
Crunch Times: Politics And The Crisis
ILP Round Table Seminar
Esplanade Hotel, Scarborough
13th-14th June 2009
To read a report of this event, click here.
To read Barry Winter’s paper, ‘Lies, Hubris and Neo-liberalism’, click here.
To read Will Brown’s talk, ‘How to let a good crisis go to waste’, click here.
For information on the ILP’s 2010 weekend seminar please email: info@independentlabour.org.uk
or phone: 07799 502937
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Spanish Civil War Commemoration
A celebration of the ILP volunteers
Saturday 30 May 2009, 2.00pm • Working Class Movement Library, Salford
More details
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No Turning Back
The 2009 Robin Cook Memorial Conference
Saturday 13 June 2009 • Institute of Education, London
Organised by Compass. More details
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Politics after crash
The fifth Soundings annual event
Saturday 20 June 2009 • 120 Belsize Lane, London NW3
Organised by Soundings. More details
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A short, moving account of the Spanish Civil War. Focusing on events in Catalonia, it shows how even today, there is more to be remembered than the courage of the International Brigade.
A lively, frank and well-illustrated account of the ILP’s history from its origins in the 1890s, the Labour party’s development, and the rise and fall of the Labour left.