The newly-formed Hannah Mitchell Foundation is holding its public launch in the Banqueting Hall of Bradford City Hall, at 1.15pm on Friday 9 March.
The Porta de la Historia co-operative is organising a weekend trip to Catalonia to commemorate the 75th anniversary of George Orwell’s wounding outside Huesca.
Part four of The ILP: Past & Present featuring the ILP in the 1930s, its role in the Spanish Civil War, and its attitude to the Second World War. It also covers the post-war decline of the ILP as a political force before its re-constitution as Independent Labour Publications in 1975.
This is the latest extract from a 1993 pamphlet written by BARRY WINTER which we are planning to re-write. We are putting the text online in six stages, supplemented by a series of ‘side stories’, and invite you to comment on the contents.
It was on this day, 13th January, 119 years ago that 120 or so young, working class, mainly male delegates gathered at the Labour Institute in Bradford to found the Independent Labour Party.
PAUL SALVESON traces the life of early ILPer Hannah Mitchell and explains why her kind of politics is still an inspiration today.
When I was getting interested in working class history, back in the early 1970s, I was fascinated by a book called The Hard Way Up. It was written by a Northern working class woman called Hannah Mitchell. She was born in rural North Derbyshire and moved as a young girl to what must have seemed like the thriving metropolis of Bolton, where I was brought up. She became involved in the embryonic socialist movement and read Blatchford’s Clarion newspaper.
The third of six instalments from The ILP: Past & Present covering the rise of the Labour Party, the ILP’s growing disaffection and its eventual disaffiliation.
The ILP had branches across Britain. In some places, it was not only strong but influential.
Socialism did not begin with the ILP. But the ILP created a unique blend of socialism. Not only did it achieve independent representation for labour and links with the trade unions, it also worked outside the formal political structures.
From the beginning, the ILP accepted women and men as equal members and, as early as 1895, it supported the extension of the vote to both women and men.
A dozen or so experienced politicos from across the north met at Sowerby Bridge Station one Friday earlier this month to set up ‘The Hannah Mitchell Foundation’, a think tank for northern socialists named after an old ILPer.
Independent Labour Publications (ILP) is an educational trust, publishing house and pressure group committed to democratic socialism and the success of a democratic socialist Labour Party.
The ILP was formed in 1893 as the Independent Labour Party, which became a co-founder of the Labour Party at the beginning of the 20th century. Today we remain committed to Labour's aim of creating 'a society for the many, not the few' and seek to engage with others in discussing how this vision can be turned into reality.
Land and Freedom
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.
ILP - Past & Present
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.