 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Gregor Gall (born 1967) is a British academic and writer, who has taught at several British universities.
He was professor of industrial relations at the University of Bradford and before then professors of industrial relations at the University of Stirling and the University of Hertfordshire. He is now an affiliate research associate in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, [1] a visiting professor at the University of Leeds and an honorary professor at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. He researches and writes primarily about trade unions, and has a particular interest in the labour movement politics of Scotland – for example, he is working on a research project examining union leadership and the disproportionate contribution of Scots to the British-wide union movement at senior levels (like general secretaries).
He is author and editor of numerous academic books, and is also a politically engaged academic, whereby he has regularly contributed to the Morning Star , The Guardian's Comment is free website, the Frontline magazine, The Conversation , The Scotsman , The Herald , The Huffington Post , The National and a number of other media outlets, such as the journal of the ASLEF train drivers' Locomotive union and Tribune . He also provides research and consultancy to a number of unions, particularly the Fire Brigades Union, and is a frequent commentator in the media on matters of unions and industrial conflict. He was also a correspondent for Planetlabor from 2009 to 2016.
Originally a member of Labour Students and the Labour Party from 1985, he ended his membership of these in 1988 over the issue of the poll tax, then joining the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) in 1990. He joined the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) in advance of the SWP joining en masse, leaving the SWP in 2004 after many years of growing disagreements. He was a member of the editorial board of the Scottish Left Review from 2003, [2] was editor of its book arm, the Scottish Left Review Press, and has been the editor of the journal of the Scottish Labour History Society , called Scottish Labour History since 2008 (then since 2015 as joint editor with Jim Philips of the University of Glasgow). Following the resignation of Robin McAlpine as Director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation and Editor of the Scottish Left Review to concentrate on the Commonweal, Gall stepped in as Director and Editor. Gall was a member of the board of management of the Jimmy Reid Foundation since its inception. Gall resigned as Director and Editor in December 2022. He has written a lengthy and detailed biography of Tommy Sheridan (Welsh Academic Press, 2012).
In late 2013, he published his contribution to the case for Scottish independence entitled Scotland the brave? Independence and radical social change. The key arguments concerned not relying on the SNP and establishing a connection between the material grievances of ordinary citizens and the possibilities of higher standards of living and better life chances under independence as a result of rolling back the tentacles of neo-liberalism.
Following the sudden and unexpected death of RMT general secretary Bob Crow in March 2014, Gall has written a political biography of him, examining what lessons can be learnt for the union movement from his style of leadership in espousing militant, oppositional politics. The biography was published by Manchester University Press in March 2017 on the third anniversary of his death. [3]
An extended analysis of the politics of Joe Strummer and their impact was published by Gall in June 2022 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the death of Strummer, one of the most influential radical musicians of the twentieth century. The study draws on original testimony to explore how Strummer inspired many to adopt left-wing politics and others to sustain them in their left-wing politics. [4]
Manchester University Press published Professor Gregor Gall's Mick Lynch: The making of a working-class hero in early 2024. The book is a combined biographical and sociological study of Lynch as he became a leading left-wing public figure from the early summer of 2022 onwards.
James Keir Hardie was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party, and was its first parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908.
The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie, became its first chairman.
Paul Mackintosh Foot was a British investigative journalist, political campaigner, author, and long-time member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
Alexander Theodore Callinicos is a Rhodesian-born British political theorist and activist. An adherent of Trotskyism, he is a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and serves as its International Secretary. Between 2009 and 2020 he was the editor of International Socialism, the SWP's theoretical journal, and has published a number of books.
Lindsey Ann German is a British left-wing political activist. A founding member and convenor of the British anti-war organisation Stop the War Coalition, she was formerly a member of the Socialist Workers Party, sitting on its central committee and being editor of its magazine, Socialist Review.
John Rees is a British political activist, academic, journalist and writer who is a national officer of the Stop the War Coalition, and founding member of Counterfire. He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Chris Bambery is a Scottish political activist, socialist, author, journalist, TV presenter and producer, most recently with the Islam Channel where he hosts their current affairs programme The Report.
Hard left or hard-left is a term that is used particularly in Australian and British English to describe the most radical members of a left-wing political party or political group. The term is also a noun and modifier taken to mean the far-left and the left-wing political movements and ideas outside the mainstream centre-left. The term has been used to describe wings and factions of several political parties across the world, such as the left-wing of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom and left-wing factions of the Australian Labor Party.
The history of the Socialist Workers Party begins with the formation of the Socialist Review Group in 1950, followed by the creation of the International Socialists in 1962 and continues through to the present day with the formation of the Socialist Workers Party in 1977.
Colin Barker was a British sociologist as well as a Marxist historian and writer. A former long-standing member of the Socialist Workers Party in Manchester, he was the author of numerous articles and works on Marxism, including a history of the Polish trade union Solidarity, Festival of the Oppressed.
Alan Johnson is a British political theorist and activist. He is a senior research fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Previously he was Professor of Democratic Theory and Practice at Edge Hill University.
The Convention of the Left (CL) is an annual conference of British left, socialist, progressive and green parties and organisations, first held in Manchester in September 2008. The format of the conference was that it 'shadowed' the Labour Party's 2008 Annual Conference, also being held in the city. A 'recall' event was held in the city in January 2009.
David Renton is a British barrister, and has represented clients in a number of high-profile cases, especially concerning trade union rights and the protection of free speech. He was for many years a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). He has published over twenty books on fascism, anti-fascism, and the politics of the left.
Jessie Stephen, MBE was a twentieth-century British suffragette, labour activist and local councillor. She grew up in Scotland and won a scholarship to train as a teacher. Family finances dictated otherwise, leading to her becoming a domestic worker at the age of 15. She became involved in national labour issues as a teenager, via organisations such as the Independent Labour Party and the Women's Social and Political Union. Stephen moved to London during World War I and in the 1920s she toured the United States and Canada, where she held meetings with the public including migrant English domestic workers.
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a far-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded as the Socialist Review Group by supporters of Tony Cliff in 1950, it became the International Socialists in 1962 and the SWP in 1977. The party considers itself to be Trotskyist. Cliff and his followers criticised the Soviet Union and its satellites, calling them state capitalist rather than socialist countries.
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB founded the Daily Worker. In 1936, members of the party were present at the Battle of Cable Street, helping organise resistance against the British Union of Fascists. In the Spanish Civil War, the CPGB worked with the USSR to create the British Battalion of the International Brigades, which party activist Bill Alexander commanded.
Michael Lavalette is a British academic specialising in social work. He was a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) from 1981 until 2018, when he left to join Counterfire. He was a local councillor in Preston, Lancashire from 2003 to 2014.
Unite Against Fascism (UAF) is a British anti-fascist group.
Agnes Johnston Dollan MBE, also known as Agnes, Lady Dollan, was a Scottish suffragette and political activist. She was a leading campaigner during the Glasgow Rent Strikes, and a founding organiser of the Women's Peace Crusade. In 1919, she was the first woman selected by the Labour party to stand for election to Glasgow Town Council, and later became Lady Provost of Glasgow.
Far-left politics in the United Kingdom have existed since at least the 1840s, with the formation of various organisations following ideologies such as Marxism, revolutionary socialism, communism, anarchism and syndicalism.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
