Easter Sunday marks 12 months since Keir Starmer was elected Labour leader on 4 April 2020. DAVID CONNOLLY assesses his first-year performance and suggests a way forward for the left.
In Sir Keir Starmer’s own words, Labour faces a “monumental task” to win the next general election…
It is a common misconception that trade unions founded the Labour Party in 1900. Not so, says JOHN H GRIGG. It was the ILP that drove the initiative.
Politicians of all shades trumpet the ideal of social mobility as a mark of a fair society. It’s a claim picked apart by Selina Todd in her rich and compelling new book, Snakes and Ladders. MARIA GOULDING is impressed by a powerful manifesto for change.
Like many working-class socialists, Blackburn ILPer Johnnie Duxbury left only a faint footprint on the historical record. Yet his life of brave activism and everyday kindness ‘enriches our understanding of socialist commitment’, argues ROGER SMALLEY.
GARY KENT recalls how some on the British left challenged orthodox thinking and pioneered an alternative approach to Northern Ireland that helped lay the political groundwork for the Good Friday Agreement.
Anyone from Northumberland or County Durham involved in the 1984 miners’ strike will know the name of Anne Suddick, who died in January aged 72. Anne was a founding member of Women Against Pit Closures, set up the Durham Miners’ Support Group, and coordinated the Northumberland and Durham Justice for Mineworkers Campaign. MARY STRATFORD remembers…
The first ever biography of socialist pioneer and Burnley Labour MP Dan Irving is due to be published by Nelson ILP Land Society.
To mark International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we are highlighting the lives of nine ILP women who played important roles in the early years of the Labour movement. All of them were tireless campaigners for women’s votes and gender equality, and against war and poverty.
Comment
Building a New Consensus
GARY KENT recalls how some on the British left challenged orthodox thinking and pioneered an alternative approach to Northern Ireland that helped lay the political groundwork for the Good Friday Agreement.