To mark International Women’s Day on 8 March, the Working Class Movement Library is hosting a talk by Marika Sherwood on Claudia Jones, the Trinidad-born communist, feminist, peace activist, orator, journalist and founder of the biggest street festival in Europe....
Actors Christopher Eccleston, Sheila Hancock, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Mike Joyce and Maxine Peake will all be reading extracts from radical works of literature and history as part of the Working Class Movement LIbrary’s second ‘Radical Readings’ fundraiser on Sunday 27 November....
It is with great sadness that we learned recently of the death of the ILP’s oldest member, Jennie Cuthbert. Jennie died peacefully in her sleep on Monday 9 March. Her lifelong membership of the ILP provided a living link between the modern organisation and the party’s earliest decades. ...
Land and Freedom is an expanded edition of the ILP’s short but moving account of the Spanish Civil War, using the often-silenced voices of Spanish activists. Focusing on events in Catalonia, it shows how even today, there is much more to be remembered than the courage of members of the International Brigade. The pamphlet...
WILLIAM KNOX charts the devoted life of ILP leader James Maxton, “a special kind of orator who inspired human beings to struggle for socialism”. James Maxton was born on 22 June 1885 in Pollockshaws, Glasgow, the son of James Maxton, schoolteacher, and Melvina (née Purdon), a former school teacher. At the time of Maxton’s...
BARRY WINTER celebrates the ILP’s 120th anniversary with a brief survey of its history and consideration of the lessons it can pass on to a left struggling to make headway in our highly disconnected and politically disenchanted society....
Over 200 people assembled at the Manchester Conference Centre on Saturday 2 March to take part in the annual IBMT (International Brigade Memorial Trust) Len Crome Lecture. The title of the day’s conference was ‘Homage to Catalonia 75 years on’....
The International Brigades Memorial Trust is holding a special event in Manchester on 2 March to mark the 75th anniversary of George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia....
This year marks the 120th anniversary of the ILP, a milestone in British political history that we aim to celebrate over the next 12 months. The Independent Labour Party was founded on 13 January 1893 when some 120 delegates gathered at the Labour Institute in Bradford to create a national political party to represent working...
The Working Class Movement Library, which houses some of the ILP archives, has won the national Museums at Night contest to stage an international artist event in May. The Salford-based library beat Quay Arts on the Isle of Wight and the Guernsey Museum in a public vote described as 'a triumph of activism' by its...
The Working Class Movement Library, which houses some of the ILP archives, has been shortlisted in the Arts Council-funded Museums at Night competition to win an artist to appear in an event at the library in May. Museums at Night is an annual after-hours celebration when hundreds of museums, galleries, libraries, archives and heritage...
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....