Hilary Wainwright

2 weeks ago | redpepper.org.uk | Hilary Wainwright

The left in the UK has a fatal attraction to shortcuts. In 1906 the left-wing Independent Labour Party (ILP) joined the Labour Representation Committee, the trade union dominated committee that founded the Labour Party, because it believed that the Labour Party, with its trade union affiliations, provided socialists with the organised working class as captive audience – and thereby a shortcut to socialism.

Feb 28, 2025 | redpepper.org.uk | Hilary Wainwright

In 1994, it was possible – though challenging – to launch a monthly print magazine. Market-led politics were already eroding the welfare state but it still offered sufficient security for people to have time to volunteer as editors and writers. We could keep printing costs low by using a supplier associated with a sympathetic foundation.

Aug 25, 2024 | redpepper.org.uk | Hilary Wainwright

As I walked away from the committee rooms of Jeremy Corbyn’s election campaign in Islington North, I did not dare imagine that he had won. It was not only superstition; it was what I thought then was a sober assessment of the power of the Labour machine and the oil on which it had traditionally run: a solid base of habitual Labour voters. I was wrong. Corbyn won with a 7,000 majority. Four other independents and four Greens were also elected against Labour contenders.

Jun 1, 2024 | redpepper.org.uk | Jake Woodier |Hilary Wainwright

Undoubtedly, the climate crisis is intensifying. Extreme weather is taking hold, regularly impacting the lives of people across the planet with increasing intensity. Meanwhile, the UN climate conference – the global forum for the international community to tackle the problem – was most recently held in the UAE, one of the world’s largest oil producing states. The next iteration will be in Azerbaijan, an authoritarian petro-state.

Jun 1, 2024 | redpepper.org.uk | Tony Cook |Dee Searle |Clifford Singer |Hilary Wainwright

In the early 1990s, after decades of unbroken Tory rule and a defensive Labour leadership increasingly echoing Thatcherite attitudes, a feeling of disenfranchisement was strong among the radical, green and feminist left. Following the 1992 closure of its predecessor, Socialist (a short-lived fortnightly paper borne out of the Chesterfield Socialist Conferences), the Red Pepper founders set out to establish a new alternative publication as an antidote to a frustrated and fractured left.