Skip to main content
The Labour Party’s anti-war traditions go back to its roots
Despite attempts to erase history, there has always been strong anti-imperialist pro-peace contingent in Labour and the wider movement, says KEITH FLETT
Tony Benn

TONY BLAIR made a point on turning his back on the labour movement and rejecting Labour Party history. 

Despite having been MP for Sedgefield, in the north-east of England, he broke with tradition as leader and shunned the Durham Miners’ Gala. 

His main interest was in developing the future for New Labour, although, had he studied history, he might have grasped that there was nothing all that new, in most respects, about his project.

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Features / 18 April 2025
18 April 2025
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
Karl Marx 1
Features / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
TURNING POINT: The anti-cuts plan put forward by Tony Benn (
Features / 31 March 2025
31 March 2025
Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Excheq
Features / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT
Similar stories
Veteran Labour politician, Tony Benn, in Grosvenor Square, L
Editorial: / 3 April 2025
3 April 2025
Gaza protest
Features / 13 November 2024
13 November 2024
After a year of vibrant Palestine protests, LINDSEY GERMAN calls all campaigners to this weekend’s mass meeting of the anti-war movement in London
Peace news team
Features / 28 September 2024
28 September 2024
IAN SINCLAIR mourns the end of the longstanding activist newspaper that proudly stood ‘For Revolutionary Nonviolence’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer with former Conservative MP N
Features / 14 May 2024
14 May 2024
Normally in British politics, leftwingers defect right. Under Blair and now Starmer however, this trend seems to reverse, calling into question the ‘broad church’ that welcomes Tories and excludes socialists, writes KEITH FLETT