One hundred years ago this month, members of the ILP gathered in Bradford for its ‘Coming of Age’ 21st anniversary conference. In his address to delegates, KEIR HARDIE, the ILP’s guiding spirit and the Labour Party’s first leader, outlined how far the organisation had come since it was founded in the same city in...
Lest we Forget
Priyamvada Gopal’s article on the resistance to the First World War (Honour those who fought – and those who would not, 28 February) provides an excellent and much needed rebalancing of the debate about the war. She rightly argues that those who opposed the conflict also deserve remembering. Not least the sacrifices that many...
WWI: ‘Workers, Stand for Peace’
On 31 July 1914 the ILP’s Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson signed an ‘Appeal to the British Working Class’ on behalf of the British section of the International Socialist Bureau, which called for them to ‘act promptly and vigorously in the interests of peace’. ‘There is no time to lose,’ they said. ‘Men and women...
The Great Stumble Forward
The proposed reforms to Labour’s links with the trade unions are both a significant step forward and a fudge, says WILL BROWN. While the changes should be welcomed (with some reservations), the prospect of a mass, democratic, participatory party is still a long way off....
Government ‘Turning a Blind Eye’ to Bedroom Tax Suffering
The Unite union this week accused the government of turning a blind eye to the suffering being caused by the ‘bedroom tax’, as new figures reveal up to 50,000 households have been charged in error. ...
The ILP and Labour Party Democracy
The ILP has a long history of campaigning for democratic change within the Labour Party. We were at the forefront of the early campaigns for internal reform in the late 1970s when the left agued for (and eventually won, in 1979) the right of constituency Labour Parties to deselect sitting MPs. This right, now...
WWI: The ILP and the ‘Great’ War
The ILP played a major role in the anti-war and no conscription movements during the First World War. Many were gaoled, and many abused for their principled, political opposition to the conflict. Yet, not all ILPers became conscientious objectors, as IAN BULLOCK explains....
WWI: Remember Those Who Refused to Fight
‘We have a duty to educate future generations about the First World War,’ declared David Cameron, announcing centenary commemorations of the war’s outbreak in 1914. We have a duty to remember the whole story, argues OWEN ADAMS, including those who opposed the conflict. ...
ILP@120: The Life and Times of Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee had a very long and productive political life. DAVID CONNOLLY provides a brief sketch of the prime minister who first learned his politics in the ILP in the early years of the 20th century. Clement Richard Attlee was born on 3 January 1883, the seventh of eight children in a deeply religious, Anglican,...
ILP@120: Mabel Tothill and the Bristol ILP
Mabel Tothill was one of a small number of wealthy women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who took up the cause of socialism and joined Bristol ILP. JUNE HANNAM tells their story. Born in Liverpool in 1869, Tothill was one of a dogged group who worked tirelessly together in socialist and Labour...
Clarion House Calls for Friends
The Nelson ILP Land Society has set up a new organisation to help preserve and maintain Clarion House, the socialist cafe and tea house which has existed on the same spot in Lancashire for more than 100 years....
ILP@120: Alf Mattison – Leeds Archivist and Labour Activist
A lifelong ILPer, Alf Mattison is best known as a local historian, and for his Leeds Labour archives, source of material on the movement’s early years. MICHAEL MEADOWCROFT discovers the man behind the footnotes. Socialism has always needed its scribes and archivists. Alf Mattison was both, and without him Labour history in Leeds would be...