On Sunday 15 December, Labour’s general secretary Jennie Formby announced to staff the proposed timetable for the next party leadership election. The “period of reflection”, which Jeremy Corbyn announced that he would oversee as leader, will effectively end just 3 weeks after the party’s election defeat. Considering the state of the 2015 leadership contest up until the first BBC hustings, it is astonishing…
Authoritarianism has always shaped how the Labour Party has approached social policy. The New Labour years were defined by ‘tough’ Home Secretaries choosing their next target to deride as anathema to British society; be it professors telling uncomfortable truths about drugs, or asylum seekers having the temerity to exist within our borders. Tony Blair even went so far as to describe Labour’s…
The concept of Old Labour is vague, but comforting. It conjures up images of a time when values weren’t compromised. A time when the party knew what, and most importantly, who it stood for. Sustaining this legend requires a number of instances of racism at the core of Labour policy in both foreign and domestic spheres to be ignored, and a gross…
