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....
My Long Road to Labour
We often hear that radical young people are turned off by mainstream parties and parliamentary politics. Not 17-year-old LIAM COOK who moved from anarchy and apathy to Labour (and the ILP). Being born in 1996 offers me a very strange outlook on British politics. I can remember my father’s post-Thatcher enthusiasm drain as our Tony...
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...
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...
ILP@120: Bob Edwards – A Lifetime on the Left
From Liverpool ILP to the House of Commons via Russia, Spain and the USA, Bob Edwards was politically active all his life. CHRIS HALL retraces his long journey. Bob Edwards had a remarkably long political life. He was a member of the ILP ‘Guild of Youth’, then became an ILP member and a Labour Party...
Unbalanced Britain: What Can We Do?
Our society has been deranged by neoliberal capitalism, says BARRY WINTER. How can the creative, reflective forces of the progressive left begin to counter the huge imbalances in power and wealth?...
ILP@120: Tom Maguire – A Leeds Pioneer
Tom Maguire died tragically young, but for 10 years he built a formidable reputation as an orator, organiser and poet. JOHN BATTLE tells his tale. Tom Maguire, the Leeds socialist pioneer, fought for a new politics at the end of the 19th century. He saw his struggle primarily as building up a movement to wrest...
Nelson Mandela: Remember the Man and the Struggle
The death of Nelson Mandela in South Africa has rightly led to a flood of tributes from public figures all over the world. But we should remember that change in South Africa was the result of long, hard political struggle....
ILP@120: Katharine Bruce Glasier – The ILP’s Spiritual Socialist
History has often overlooked Katharine Bruce Glasier in favour of her more famous husband. But, as PAUL SALVESON shows, she was an inspiring figure who made an immense contribution to the socialist movement. Katharine Bruce Glasier was one of the most remarkable figures in the English socialist movement. She was one of the most popular...
ILP@120: John Bruce Glasier – Socialist Pioneer
An appreciation of John Bruce Glasier, written by Scottish ILP activist and social reformer MARTIN HADDOW in the 1940s. “What the socialist movement needs is a deepening of socialist life within – something that will exalt its faith and purpose, something that will suffuse it with the socialist spirit, rather than encourage lust for...