Red Ellen's Legacy: Rachel Reeves and the Spirit of Socialist Defiance

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In the office of Rachel Reeves, the new Chancellor, hangs a portrait of Ellen Wilkinson, a bold socialist and one of the founders of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Known as “Red Ellen,” Wilkinson’s legacy as a pioneering Labour education minister and a woman of unyielding political resolve has become an apparent source of inspiration for Reeves as she presented her inaugural Budget in the House of Commons.

 

 

This act of homage is telling: Reeves recently replaced a portrait of former Chancellor Nigel Lawson with Wilkinson’s likeness in her office at No. 11, a detail revealed in a Treasury photograph the night before her first Budget speech.

 

Wilkinson’s life is a study in defiance and transformation, a theme that resonates with Reeves’s potential aspirations for Labour’s tenure. Ellen Wilkinson read history at the University of Manchester beginning in 1910, a time when higher education was still a rarity for women. Just four years earlier, Christabel Pankhurst had graduated as Manchester’s first-ever female law graduate.

 

Wilkinson’s time at university marked her deep commitment to the labor movement and the women’s movement, initially through the university’s Fabian Society branch and later as a trade union organizer. During her university years, she became romantically involved with Walton Newbold, who later became the UK’s first Communist MP. Though the relationship eventually ended, her passion for political activism only grew.

 

Wilkinson’s fervor for social justice sometimes came at a personal cost. She famously recounted that she sacrificed a First in her degree, receiving instead a 2:1, as she devoted her energy “to a strike raging in Manchester.” Inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution, she joined members of the Independent Labour Party to co-found the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920.

 

A year later, she traveled to Moscow to attend a congress, meeting notable communist leaders such as Leon Trotsky and Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, whose speech deeply influenced Wilkinson. Despite her zeal for revolution, Wilkinson eventually diverged from her Communist Party peers on ideology. She sought a parliamentary seat, running as a Labour candidate in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1923, boldly asserting, “We shall have only one class in this country: the working class.”

 

Though unsuccessful, her second attempt in 1924 secured her a seat as MP for Middlesbrough East, where her active role in Labour continued despite having to resign from the Communist Party due to Labour’s policy against dual membership.

Wilkinson’s legacy encapsulates the ideological struggle within Labour, balancing the push for socialism with a more centrist approach, a tension still evident in contemporary party dynamics. Her story embodies a balance of unwavering socialist principles with the pragmatism needed to navigate political structures, a reflection of Labour’s own internal debates that may continue under Keir Starmer’s leadership.

 

For Reeves, Wilkinson’s portrait is more than decoration; it represents a figure she has long admired. In her 2019 book *Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics*, Reeves praised Wilkinson’s “defiance, determination, and courage” in breaking into a male-dominated political sphere. With Wilkinson’s portrait now hanging in her office, Reeves’s choice signals a tribute to socialist ideals and the courage to confront entrenched norms. Whether Reeves, as Chancellor, will follow in the steps of Red Ellen, challenging the establishment with a similar revolutionary zeal, or pursue a more tempered approach remains to be seen.

 

Her tenure may ultimately reveal whether she aligns herself with Wilkinson’s vision or if her ambitions, like her decor, will favor a softer tone.

 

Based on a report by the Daily Telegraph 2024-11-01

 

 

 

[john donson]

anything left became so tainted these days... pocket filling and silly rules for the sheeple... and let's not forget mass immigration of a population not compatible with the locals...  maybe they try to start a new revolution when the people finally are fed up... but in most of those leftist countries, the population was disarmed...