Jamila Squire (Westminster) on international solidarity with Italian political prisoners: 1979-84

My MA dissertation research focuses on a wave of state repression of Italian militants from the late 1970s to mid-1980s. On 7 April 1979 several Italian militants and intellectuals of Potere Operaio (workers’ power), Autonomia Operaia (workers’ autonomy), and unaffiliated activists critical of the Italian Communist Party, were arrested for participation in the armed group ‘The Red Brigades’ and the suspected kidnapping and killing of … Continue reading Jamila Squire (Westminster) on international solidarity with Italian political prisoners: 1979-84

The Limits to Solidarity: Trade Union Responses to European Workers in Britain, 1945–1948

Author: Avram TaylorThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2025), 90, (1). Read more. During the first years of the post-war Labour government (1945–8), three groups of foreign workers were incorporated into the labour force: prisoners of war (POWs), Polish soldiers who had fought with the British, and European volunteer workers (EVWs). This article examines the responses of the trade union movement to … Continue reading The Limits to Solidarity: Trade Union Responses to European Workers in Britain, 1945–1948

In tune: Bandiera Rossa

This stirring anthem of the Italian Left was also once popular with Labour Party activists, as Mark Crail recalls. Bandiera Rossa(Music, traditional; lyrics, Carlo Tuzzi, 1908) Bandiera Rossa may share its title with The Red Flag, but there the similarities end. There is no room here for dungeons dark or gallows grim, let alone any martyred dead. The Italian labour movement’s anthem is, rather, an … Continue reading In tune: Bandiera Rossa

Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 2

The books listed below are reviewed in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (2), 185-198. Read more. Joe Stanley reviews Peter Hounsell, Bricks of Victorian London: A Social and Economic History, Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2022, pp. xiv + 283 + 15 plates, p/b, £18.99, ISBN 978 19122 60577 Quentin Outram reviews M.M. Borodin (trans. and ed. Pete Dickenson), The Great Betrayal: Black Friday and the 1921 Miners’ Lockout, London: … Continue reading Book reviews in Labour History Review Volume 88 (2023), Issue 2

The First International Seen from the Periphery: The Portuguese Case (1871–1876)

Author: João LázaroThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2023), 88, (1), 1-25. Read more. This article discusses the influence the Spanish workers’ movement had in the creation of the Portuguese section of the First International (the International Working Men’s Association) and the political struggles faced by the First International in Portugal. From 1871 until 1876, a battle for the periphery … Continue reading The First International Seen from the Periphery: The Portuguese Case (1871–1876)

Roundtable on the ‘New Cold War’

Authors: Peter Gurney, Matthew Grant, Grace Huxford, Christoph Laucht, Jennifer Luff, Holger NehringThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2022), 87, (3), 277-312. Read more. This article is currently freely available. Introduction: Peter Gurney on The Marginalization of HistoryThe ongoing conflict in Ukraine is having profound repercussions in Britain, not least on our cultural and intellectual life. However, although the … Continue reading Roundtable on the ‘New Cold War’

The Copenhagen connection: Harold Wilson, Jens Otto Krag and Labour European policy

Labour’s European policies in the Wilson era were shaped not just in Whitehall but by formal and informal links between key players in the party and its Danish counterpart, says Dr Matt Broad, author of Harold Wilson, Denmark and the Making of Labour European Policy, 1958–72 Continue reading The Copenhagen connection: Harold Wilson, Jens Otto Krag and Labour European policy