Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Tom Maguire: a man of the working class and for the working class
RICHARD BURGON pays tribute to a legendary socialist from Leeds

ON Saturday, Unite the Union general secretary Len McCluskey will be delivering the inaugural Tom Maguire Lecture in the beautiful surroundings of Chapel FM Arts Centre — a unique community venue in a spectacularly converted Methodist Chapel — on the Seacroft estate in East Leeds. 

Before delivering the Memorial Lecture, I will be joining Len to lay flowers on Maguire’s grave in Beckett Street Cemetery, opposite St James’s Hospital. 

I decided to establish an event in memory of Maguire because he was a real Leeds labour and trade union movement hero. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
lesbians
Books / 17 July 2026
17 July 2026

DIANE WATT argues that while evidence of sex is not there, a 16th‑century lesbian poet could be Scotland’s answer to Gentleman Jack

Land O’Cakes Hotel, Great Ancoats Street, Manchester in July 1962 / pic: Manchester Archives+/CC
Downing Street of the north / 16 July 2026
16 July 2026

KEITH FLETT looks at geographical roots of working-class activism in Britain

Statue of Oliver Cromwell
Full Marx / 2 February 2026
2 February 2026

The selection, analysis and interpretation of historical ‘facts’ always takes place within a paradigm, a model of how the world works. That’s why history is always a battleground, declares the Marx Memorial Library

Sir Richard Acland Labour MP arrives at the Houses of Parliament for its historic opening, October 26, 1950
Features / 27 November 2025
27 November 2025

MAT COWARD tells the story of the eccentric founder of a short-lived but striking experiment in ‘vital democracy,’ who became best known for giving away his estate to the nation