It’s been a long, hard journey for the Selina Cooper project team in Nelson, from a dusty archive in the local library to a long-delayed public launch at one of the town’s oldest buildings. But with Covid restrictions finally easing, their struggle to commemorate the locality’s proud socialist history is finally coming to fruition....
BEN SALTONSTALL reviews a powerful and timely study of the influence of identity politics on recent British history. It’s an analysis the left must consider if Labour is ever to rise from the ashes of 2019....
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....
It is a common misconception that trade unions founded the Labour Party in 1900. Not so, says JOHN H GRIGG. It was the ILP that drove the initiative....
Politicians of all shades trumpet the ideal of social mobility as a mark of a fair society. It’s a claim picked apart by Selina Todd in her rich and compelling new book, Snakes and Ladders. MARIA GOULDING is impressed by a powerful manifesto for change....
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....
Anyone from Northumberland or County Durham involved in the 1984 miners’ strike will know the name of Anne Suddick, who died in January aged 72. Anne was a founding member of Women Against Pit Closures, set up the Durham Miners’ Support Group, and coordinated the Northumberland and Durham Justice for Mineworkers Campaign. MARY STRATFORD...
JAIME REYNOLDS reveals the remarkable achievements of four unknown ILP women who became important local government leaders between the wars but have since been left out of Labour history....
Labour’s founder is often presented as old and sad at the state of the world. But, argues PAULINE BRYAN in the Introduction to her latest volume of essays, his main motivation wasn’t sadness, but anger....
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....
Last December Labour returned only one MP in Scotland for the second time in three general elections and it’s been out of power in Holyrood for 13 years. The time has come for change, say DANIEL DEERY and CIAN IRELAND, or the party faces continued decline....
In the first of a series of despatches from ILPers and friends around the country, SEAN CREIGHTON reports from Croydon where a network of mutual aid groups, willing individuals and the local authority are working hard to support the community....