Saturday 20 August 2016 marked the 40th anniversary of the day when Jayaben Desai walked out of the Grunwick photo-developing company in London, igniting a strike which drew support from thousands. GRAHAM TAYLOR remembers the woman whose dignity in dispute recalled the ethical traditions of the ILP. For Jayaben Desai, the Grunwick strike was about...
Celebrating Radical Women
The battles and achievements of working-class women in the drive to achieve a fairer and more balanced society will be celebrated in a one-day conference at the Working Class Movement Library on Saturday 17 September....
The Left, the ILP and the Corbyn Leadership
JONATHAN TIMBERS wants to kickstart the left (and the ILP) into discussing the major challenges facing Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. We all have responsibility to come up with some answers....
Salters Play to Tour London
Politic Man, Alison Mead’s play about pioneering ILPers Ada and Alf Salter, is all set to go ahead with performances lined up at venues across London in May and June....
Ada Salter: Pioneer of Ethical Socialism
Graham Taylor’s fine biography of Ada Salter provides a vivid account of the ILP’s ethical socialism as she lived it, says BARRY WINTER. Ada Salter’s hands-on approach to making the world a better place is told with clarity and passion in Graham Taylor’s new biography of the pioneering ILPer. Moreover, Ada’s busy life is explored...
Wonder Women at WCML
Glasgow rent strike leader and pioneering ILPer Mary Barbour will be celebrated at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford on International Women’s Day as part of Manchester’s ‘Wonder Women’ feminist festival this March....
New Pamphlet: Homage to Tom Maguire
The ILP have re-published EP Thompson’s celebrated 1960 pamphlet on Leeds ILPer, poet, propagandist and photographer Tom Maguire with a new introduction by Labour historian David Howell and an additional profile by former Labour MP, John Battle. Maguire was, according to Howell’s introduction, “the personification of the marginalised”, a radical organiser who played a vital...
Living for That Better Day
Keir Hardie dedicated himself to ‘constant agitation’ and left a singular political legacy in the form of the Labour Party. David Connolly reviews What Would Keir Hardie Say?, a book of essays published last September to coincide with the centenary of Hardie’s death. Keir Hardie is an iconic figure in the history of the Labour...
Debating Labour: It’s History and Future
‘Where’s it been? Where’s it going?’ are the questions being addressed at a series of day schools on the Labour Party starting in Yorkshire next month....
John McNair’s Spanish Diary
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, John McNair became the ILP’s representative in Barcelona, channelling money and medical supplies to support the republican cause and liaising with the ILP contingent which fought alongside the POUM militia. McNair’s graphic account of the war was reprinted in the ILP’s Socialist Leader in 1974 and later...
New ILP Mural Postcards Available
New postcards of the ILP’s famous mural from its 1914 ‘Coming of Age’ conference are now available from the ILP website....
Make the Living Wage Compulsory
While recent rate increases are welcome, the Living Wage Foundation’s voluntary approach to employers is not working, says ERNIE JACQUES....