Tribune (magazine)
Tribune is a democratic socialist political magazine founded in 1937 and published in London, initially as a newspaper, then converting to a magazine in 2001. While it is independent, it has usually supported the Labour Party from the left. Previous editors at the magazine have included Aneurin Bevan,[2] the Minister of Health who spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service, former Labour leader Michael Foot,[3] and writer George Orwell, who served as Literary Editor.[4]
From 2008 it faced serious financial difficulties until it was purchased by Jacobin in late 2018, shifting to a quarterly publication model. Since its relaunch the number of paying subscribers has passed 15,000,[1] with columns from high-profile socialist politicians such as former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn,[5][6][7][8] former Second Deputy Prime Minister of Spain Pablo Iglesias[9] and former Bolivian President Evo Morales.[10] In January 2020, it was used as the platform on which Rebecca Long-Bailey chose to launch her Labour leadership campaign.[11][12]
History[edit]
Origins[edit]
Tribune was founded in early 1937 by two wealthy left-wing Labour Party Members of Parliament (MPs), Sir Stafford Cripps and George Strauss, to back the Unity Campaign, an attempt to secure an anti-fascist and anti-appeasement united front between the Labour Party and socialist parties to the left.[13] The latter included Cripps's (Labour-affiliated) Socialist League, the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
The paper's first editor was William Mellor. Among its journalists were Michael Foot and Barbara Betts (later Barbara Castle), while the board included the Labour MPs Aneurin Bevan and Ellen Wilkinson, Harold Laski of the Left Book Club, and the veteran left-wing journalist and former ILP member H. N. Brailsford.
Mellor was fired in 1938 for refusing to adopt a new CPGB policy – supported by Cripps – of backing a popular front, including non-socialist parties, against fascism and appeasement; Foot resigned in solidarity. Mellor was succeeded by H. J. Hartshorn, a secret member of the CPGB. Meanwhile, Victor Gollancz, the Left Book Club's publisher, joined the board of directors. For the next year, the paper was little more than an appendage of the Left Book Club, taking an uncritical line on the Popular Front and the Soviet Union.
1940s[edit]
With the Nazi-Soviet pact and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Tribune initially adopted the CPGB's position of denouncing the British and French declarations of war on Germany as imperialist. After the Soviet invasion of Finland, with Cripps off on a world tour, Strauss and Bevan became increasingly impatient with Hartshorn's unrelenting Stalinism. Strauss fired Hartshorn in February 1940, replacing him as editor with Raymond Postgate. Under Postgate's editorship, the Soviet fellow travellers at Tribune were either dismissed, or in Postgate's words, "left soon after in dislike of me".[14] From then on, the paper became the voice of the pro-war democratic left in the Labour Party, taking a position similar to that adopted by Gollancz in the volume Betrayal of the Left he edited attacking the communists for backing the Nazi-Soviet pact.
Connections to the Labour Party[edit]
Labour Party Conference[edit]
The magazine has historically hosted panels and rallies- or fringe events- at Labour Party Conference.[13] In 2021 they invited Labour Party MP and SCG member Andy McDonald[38] and US politician and organiser Nina Turner.[39]
Tribune Group of MPs[edit]
The Tribune Group of Labour MPs was formed as a support group for the newspaper in 1964.[13][40] During the 1960s and 1970s it was the main forum for the left in the Parliamentary Labour Party, but it split over Tony Benn's bid for the deputy leadership of the party in 1981, with Benn's supporters forming the Campaign Group (later the Socialist Campaign Group). During the 1980s the Tribune Group was the Labour soft left's political caucus, but its closeness to the leadership of Neil Kinnock meant that it had lost any real raison d'etre by the early 1990s. It ceased to promote a list of candidates for shadow cabinet elections.[41]
The group was reformed in 2005, led by Clive Efford, MP for Eltham. Invitations to join the newly reformed group were extended to backbench Labour MPs only.[42] The group, which included former cabinet minister Yvette Cooper and former Labour policy coordinator Jon Cruddas, relaunched themselves in April 2017 aiming to reconnect with traditional Labour voters while also appealing to the centre ground. They supported "opportunity and aspiration" being central to the party's programme, with policies supporting the "security of its people at its heart". While not critical of then-leader Jeremy Corbyn, it was considered as a group of centre-left and moderate Labour MPs who would resist a left-wing successor being selected.[40] The group has no connection with the current incarnation of the magazine. In 2018 it listed more than 70 MPs as members.[43]
The group launched a new website in 2021, listing 78 MPs as members including Labour leader Keir Starmer.[44]