In his May Day message for the Morning Star, RICHARD BURGON says the call for peace, equality and socialism has never been more relevant
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The Labour Party: a complicated birth
The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 marked the beginning of interconnected and contested strategies — parliamentary and industrial — seeking ways to advance working-class interests, writes KEITH FLETT
Leaders of the Labour Representation Committee in 1906. From left to right: Arthur Henderson, G N Barnes, Ramsay Macdonald, Philip Snowden, Will Crooks, Keir Hardie, John Hodge, James O'Grady and David Shackleton
This May Day we reaffirm our commitment to working people and our class and to get trade unionism back on the front foot, says EDDIE DEMPSEY
DIANE ABBOTT looks at the whys and hows of Labour’s spectacular own goal
When it comes to extreme weather events, from wildfires to flash floods, it’s firefighters who are on the front line of defence, but services have been cut to the bone, and government is not taking seriously its responsibility for the environment, says STEVE WRIGHT
LUKE FLETCHER pours scorn on Labour’s betrayal of the Welsh steel industry, where the option of nationalisation was sneered at and dismissed – unlike at Scunthorpe where the government stepped in
Washington’s tariff policies become explicable in light of the US economy’s relative decline and the astonishing rise of China, argues MICHAEL BURKE
SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
125 YEARS AGO on February 27 1900, a meeting took place at the Memorial Hall in Farringdon St to form the Labour Representation Committee (LRC).
The building still stands although today it is a modern office with a plaque to mark the founding of the Labour Party. For many years I represented workers there as a union officer.
The meeting marked the start of a decade and more of events that still provide much of the framework for the Labour Party, the labour movement and the left today.
More from this author
KEITH FLETT revisits the 1978 origins of Britain’s May Day bank holiday — from Michael Foot’s triumph to Thatcher’s reluctant acceptance — as Starmer’s government dodges calls to expand our working-class celebrations
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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
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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
KEITH FLETT reflects on the 1964 and 1974 election victories, arguing that despite years in power, Labour failed to fundamentally reshape society in the way Thatcher later would — a pattern Blair and now Starmer would follow
The words composed by Sidney Webb: ‘To organise and maintain in Parliament and in the country a Political Labour Party’ were a crucial landmark in Labour’s journey to becoming a membership-based electoral presence, writes KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT draws parallels with the 1834 Tory crisis, noting the absence of modern-day Robert Peel among the leadership contenders capable of reinventing the party for a new era