With auto-exclusions and proscribed organisations, Labour seems to have entered another period of acute internal tension. But the party needs its broad church and membership-based democracy more than ever, says DAVID CONNOLLY....
Repeat to Fade?: Meeting Labour’s Electoral Challenge
Labour’s poor performance in recent local elections show how it’s still failing to learn lessons that have been decades in the making. WILL BROWN sifts through the all-too-familiar responses and seeks a route to recovery that embraces all parts of the fractured party....
Fade to Mauve: Starmer’s Leadership One Year On
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....
Labour ‘Under New Management’
Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership must amount to more than just competence and Union Jacks, says DAVID CONNOLLY. It’s time for Starmerism to assume the social and economic shape promised by his own campaign pledges. ...
Starmer’s (Un)Balancing Act
DAVID CONNOLLY reviews the Labour leadership’s response to recent controversies at the Proms and with the Overseas Operations Bill and wonders whether Keir Starmer is trying to ride two horses at the same time....
Corbyn, the Left and Labour’s Future
Red Labour’s BEN SELLERS talks to ILPers and fellow north-east party members MARY STRATFORD and DAVID CONNOLLY about the gains and losses of the Corbyn leadership, the role of the left under Keir Starmer and how Labour can re-build in ‘red wall’ communities....
Will We Ever Learn?
BARRY WINTER reviews Searching for Socialism by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, a valuable examination of the left’s ongoing struggle to transform the Labour Party....
Help Shape Labour’s Policy
Members of the shadow cabinet are holding a series of online policy roundtable discussions to allow party members to feed your ideas and experiences into Labour’s policy programme....
Local Parties Call for Labour to Allow Online Meetings
A number of local Labour Parties are calling on the leadership to allow branches and constituencies to meet online for formal business while in-person meetings are not possible during the coronavirus pandemic....
Why the Left Should be Starmer’s Critical Friends
Keir Starmer has committed to promoting pluralism within the Labour Party. DAVID CONNOLLY argues that the left should give Labour’s new leader a fair chance to prove himself....
‘Stay in the Party’ urges new Labour Left Network
A new grassroots network of Labour left groups has urged socialists not to leave the Party but to stay and help re-unite the left following December’s general election defeat and Keir Starmer’s rise to the Labour leadership....
Hard Choices: A Personal View of the Labour Leadership Contest
With voting now closed and the result imminent, DAVID CONNOLLY reflects on the Labour leadership contest and the tough decisions faced by Party members. Whatever the result on Saturday, all of us in the Party need to make this government accountable for its actions and inactions, leaders and foot soldiers alike....