BARRY WINTER was one of 260 people who piled into the largest lecture theatre at Leeds Beckett University last week to hear left wing author and journalist Owen Jones. He left feeling impressed, and a little bit inspired....
WWI: Lest We Forget
One hundred years on from the start of World War One, PAUL SIMPSON remembers the tale of a Durham ILPer and conscientious objector who died in prison for his anti-war beliefs. As we approach Remembrance Day on the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, I am reminded of an account I read...
Now for the Hard Part
While the No victory in the Scottish referendum was a huge relief to many, the political minefield the campaign left behind means there is much hard work to do before we’ll see any renewal of Labour and the UK left. WILL BROWN reports. The No vote means that we have avoided many problems independence would...
Unbalanced Britain: This Sorry State
BARRY WINTER assesses the work of David Marquand and considers what it can offer a left desperately seeking some answer to society’s massive imbalance in power and wealth....
Constitutional Conundrums
Labour must deliver on the promises made to Scotland argues HARRY BARNES but difficult and complex constitutional puzzles remain. Labour’s response to the result of the Scottish referendum and to the promise of further devolved powers to Scotland must first of all be to press to deliver what has been promised. Yet we also...
WWI: ILP Oppose the War Drive
In September 1914, ILP representatives refused to follow the Labour Party in heeding the government’s call for a national campaign of recruitment to the armed forces, arguing that they would not “stand by militarists and enemies of labour”. Here, we reproduce a report from the Glasgow Herald of 3 September 1914 of the ILP national...
Scotland’s Referendum: Reimagining a Nation
BARRY WINTER reviews Common Weal, the new book from the Jimmy Reid Foundation, which sets out a vision for Scotland run by its people, for its people. “Scotland’s people are in a unique position – we have been invited to imagine our nation afresh.” So argues Robin McAlpine in the opening sentence of his interesting...
Scotland’s Referendum: Why the Left Should Oppose Independence
Far from being a certain route to social democracy, as some suggest, Scottish independence is a short-cut to nowhere, says WILL BROWN. We need a longer term strategy for a progressive unionist future. A key argument on the left of centre in Scotland, repeated this week by George Monbiot in the Guardian, is that independence...
WWI: Harold Croft and the Northampton Anti-War Campaign
JOHN BUCKELL describes the life and times of Northampton ILPer Harold Croft, who faced prison, hardship and abuse for being a conscientious objector and anti-war activist. On 9 November 1920, at statutory meetings all over England, borough councils elected mayors and aldermen. Almost always these were a formality, the results agreed in advance between the...
Unbalanced Britain: What Future for Young People?
GREG ROBERTS is an apprentice accountant and youth campaigner in north east Derbyshire. In June he spoke to the ILP’s day school on Unbalanced Britain about life for young people in these austere times. Despite being born and spending half of my early childhood in Sheffield, I have, for the past eight years, lived on...
WWI: Resisting the War in Hebden Royd & Calder Valley
JONATHAN TIMBERS looks at the activity of ILP branches in the Upper Calder valley in the period before conscription was introduced in 1916, when the British army relied on volunteers to fight the Germans. It was the period before conscientious objection. The story reveals a lot about the troubled relationship developing between the ILP and...
ILP Profiles: Morgan Jones and the First World War
WAYNE DAVID recounts the life of Morgan Jones, an ILP councillor and anti-war activist who emerged from the hardship of prison to become the first conscientious objector elected to Parliament. Morgan Jones was born on 3 May 1885 in the village of Gelligaer at the foot of Gelligaer mountain. His birthplace was the small Rhos...