DAVID CONNOLLY celebrates the political thinking of Eric Preston, the ILP activist and theoretician who died a year ago....
ILP Profiles: Allen Clarke – A Radical Writer Remembered
Allen Clarke was a well-known figure in the north of England socialist movement between the early 1890s and 1930s, yet today he is virtually forgotten. PAUL SALVESON recalls the extraordinary achievements of a working class writer and romantic radical who deserves a larger legacy....
Brockway’s Book & the Post-Covid Search for a Utopian Future
How can progressives describe the society they wish to build if they cannot first imagine it? CHRISTOPHER OLEWICZ recalls Fenner Brockway’s forgotten novel and laments the lack of utopian fiction for a post-Covid world....
ILP Profiles: Ethel Carnie Holdsworth – Poet, Campaigner & Pioneering Writer
ROGER SMALLEY recounts the life of a Blackburn ILPer who wanted her work ‘to sting people into rebellion against poverty and fire their hearts with a cause’. Ethel Carnie left an impressive legacy of dissent that continues to have relevance today....
ILP Profiles: Johnnie Duxbury – The Quiet Dedication of an Ethical Socialist
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....
Throwing a Spotlight on ILP Women
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....
ILP Profiles: Johnnie Duxbury – ‘A Noble and Good Man’
BARBARA HARGREAVES pays tribute to her father, an ILPer from Blackburn who dedicated his life to ‘every progressive cause that arose’. ‘His intelligence and integrity allowed him to transcend his circumstances and help those who could not,’ she says....
ILP Profiles: David Thomas, Pioneer of the Welsh ILP
MARTIN WRIGHT remembers the remarkable life and immense contribution of a north Walian stonemason’s son who was instrumental in the early ILP’s growth and influence in Wales. Wales was one of the great socialist heartlands of 20th century Britain. The early growth of the ILP was, however, relatively slow there. The party began to put...
ILP Profiles: David Rhys Jones – Welsh Socialist Pioneer
MARTIN WRIGHT assesses the life and contribution of David Rhys Jones, a little-known ILPer and early campaigner for Welsh socialism....
ILP Profiles: Mary Barbour – Govan’s Local Hero
CATRIONA BURNESS marks the centenary of the Glasgow rent strikes with a narrative account of the life of Mary Barbour, the ILPer who lent her name to the ‘army’ of women who led resistance to profit-hungry property owners 100 years ago. The Remember Mary Barbour Association is campaigning to see a statue raised to Barbour...
Growing Up in an ILP Household
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. ...
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...