Fume Dave, fume. I think this post was designed to aggravate us all wasn't it? Well, mission accomplished. A few points:-

a) You have (fume) disgracefully misrepresented the Chartist uprising of 1848 as I suspect you know. A "petition in favour of a few reforms" it may look like now, at the time it was about the most advanced programme to be put forward by the working-class anywhere in the world, and was bloodily suppressed as a result.

b) So what if we didn't have a sizeable Communist Party? Given the blind alleys that lot led the rest of the European working class it was no great loss was it? After all, we didn't need a Communist Party to lead the...

c) 1926 General Strike? OK, it may not have succeeded, but you can hardly say this bitter dispute was the result of the action of a timid, lacksadaisacal populace?

d) Peterloo 1819, Merthry Tydfil 1831,Tolpuddle Martyrs 1837, London Dockers 1889, Cable Street 1936, Trafalgar Square 1990 to name a small handful, you don't have to look that hard for examples of heroic and/or violent class clashes in Britain's history. Some of them even successful.

So, like I said, fume.

I am not sure that you can link the Praiera revolt in Brazil to the 1848 movement. It was democratic, but its main base of support was the liberal plantation owners of Pernambuco who were also slave owners.(great name though)

But why do you miss out the Young Ireland movement, a genuinely progressive revolt (although badly planned) or the Fenians, many of whom were members of the First International?

It is no great mystery why the English movement for constitutional and social reform has been so passive. For the first period that you mention the most violent conflicts were fought out in Ireland and Scotland. After that the rise of the British Empire allowed the ruling class to buy off social unrest (and that is also where the conflicts took place).

To follow on from Ben G, the Miners Strike, Anti Poll Tax Protests, and Liverpool City Council,s battle with the Tory Goverment.

I would also join the Sealed Knot if I could play the part of a Leveller pamphleteer spreading some genuinely democratic and vaguely left-ish ideas amongst the troops of the New Model Army. Of course, in the end the religious conservatives would gain the upper hand, Cromwell would stab the movement in the back, and I would probably be executed by my own side. Or retire from politics to write poetry. Or become a Royalist-fanatic bent on assassinating Cromwell. What larks!

Not one of your best, Dave.

Try reading up on the Chartists in North Staffs (for example). Not everything happened on Kennington Common.

Ben G:; "Peterloo 1819, Merthry Tydfil 1831,Tolpuddle Martyrs 1837, London Dockers 1889, Cable Street 1936, Trafalgar Square 1990 "

Shame that you left out England's last two armed insurrections.

Is this an anti West country bias?

John "the Miners Strike, Anti Poll Tax Protests, and Liverpool City Council's battle with the Tory Goverment."

Come off it. You might have kidded yourself that 1984 was a "pre-revolutionary situation" (if you were in Militant at the time then you did - I remember that bizarre meeting you held at LPYS summer camp where people were advised to hide their gestetners under their beds in preparation for the police crack-down) but back in the real world . . . .

The point that the article makes is that there has been nothing even vaguely approaching a revolutionary struggle in Britain for the last couple of centuries, which makes people who have devoted their lives to trying to organise one appear slightly deluded.

Plenty of good solid reformist victories though.

I have to admit that I have been affliated with the militant arm of CAMRA aka the Sealed Knot and a godly majority of members tie green ribbon to their arms in alliance to the Levellers.

"Merthry Tydfil 1831"

Since when was the Merthyr uprising an 'English' rebellion ?

In deed I think that the British working classes are so conditioned that they would not dream of looting the pubs till opening time !

GW

I forget, and I'll happily be corrected by those who studied English history at school, but didn't a chunk of the Levellers get sent over to Ireland to do Cromwell's (spit) dirty work?

Reading the Putney debates, you do get a giddying sense of deja vu!

"Sexby: ... I am not sorry to see that which I apprehend is truth disputed, but I am sorry the Lord hath darkened some so much as not to see it, and that is in short this. Do you not think it were a sad and miserable condition, that we have fought all this time for nothing? All here, both great and small, do think that we fought for something. I confess, many of us fought for those ends which, we since saw, were not those which caused us to go through difficulties and straits and to venture all in the ship with you. It had been good in you to have advertised us of it, and I believe you would have had fewer under your command to have commanded. But if this be the business, that an estate doth make men capable -- it is no matter which way they get it, they are capable -- to choose those that shall represent them, I think there are many that have not estates that in honesty have as much right in the freedom of their choice as any that have great estates. Truly, sir, as for your putting off this question and coming to some other, I dare say, and I dare appeal to all of them, that they cannot settle upon any other until this be done. It was the ground that we took up arms on, and it is the ground which we shall maintain. Concerning my making rents and divisions in this way. As a particular, if I were but so, I could lie down and be trodden there; but truly I am sent by a regiment, and if I should not speak, guilt shall lie upon me, and I should think I were a covenant-breaker. I do not know how we have been answered in our arguments, and as for our engagements , I conceive we shall not accomplish them to the kingdom when we deny them to ourselves. I shall be loath to make a rent and division, but, for my own part, unless I see this put to a question, I despair of an issue."

Walking round ultra-bourgeois Zurich last week I was pleasantly surprised to see that the square adjoining a main church, where Zwingli, the Protestant reformer, was pastor for a while, is named after him.

It is so easy to forget that Zurich was a cauldron of religious discussion – with many early English Protestant exiles resident there - but also that some of the very arguments that started played such a key part in the English Civil War over a century later.

I don’t really care that the history of England may be relatively revolutionary free, there are some places where doubtless revolution will be need to brought in on the turret of an invading army – Zurich, Virginia Water, Malibu – or possibly the local population just machine gunned.

But everywhere is hit by the ripples that may start in the most unlikely places. If the world was going to be static for the next 100 years I would be worried. But it’s not and I’m not worried.

As the reformation, republicanism and more lapped to these shores, so will future waves or even possibly start here. Britain is not an island.

Conor, I was at the Forest of Dean LPYS Summer Camp in 84 (and 83) and I don't remember nor recall people discussing any such meeting.

Are you suggesting it is genetic, Dave?

It was 84 and the South Wales NUM had just had their assets sequestrated. All the debates were cancelled and an "emergency meeting" was called at which it was announced that there was about to be a general strike. This, we were told, would be met by State repression and the seizure of Labour movement printing presses (hence the advice about hiding the gestetners so that the sale of newspapers could continue). I think that Caroline Flint, John Mann and Jo Moore were amongst the other attendees. I am trying to remember whether or not Jacqui Smith was there as well.

I'm sort of surprised that Mann, as I recall him, would have been there as I remember him as active in Manchester University SU a few years before and as a prominent anti Trot in CLPD and LCC and NOLS. I just don't remember any non Trots in the Forest of Dean - just us (Classfighter), Revolution (IMG) and 100s of Millies.

I do remember LCC, Chartist type etc at the national conferences in Bridlington, and also, possibly in a counter revolutionary fashionm accepting a drink from John Denham in 1984 (?) in Bridlington whilst we criticised Militant (from opposite directions).

Things were different then - I recall my first 'tutorial' in the Forest of Dean from Clive (then SO, now AWL) about the evils of Zionism - pretty much teaching me anti Zionist politics I maintain to the present day - but look at them now.

I will confess before my comrades at the appropriate time about the drink but the rest of your article is rather worrying.

I do recall a lost night then with a woman about who I now remember very little save she was a LCCer type. If it ever fully comes back and it is as bad as it could just possibly be, I will pull the trigger myself rather than wait for the Red Tribunal.

Having had extensive experience of Jo Moore when she was in Hornsey and Wood Green Labour Party, I can affirm that she was NEVER any variety of Trot. Coming back to the original post, I've been thinking about it a bit more deeply. I wonder if it has anything to do with a)the fact that the last time England was conquered was in 1066, thus a fairly homogenous culture developed (ok, that doesn't apply to Wales, Scotland and Ireland but my understanding of the Celtic fringe is that it was basically semi-nomadic while us English types were wattling and daubing our hovels and tilling our tilth), and b)that land ownership in England may have been significantly different to the Continent ie not massive estates, each serf busily working his lord's land and then putting in the extra time on his strip. My impression too is that religion-wise, even before the rise of proto-Prototestism, English Catholicism was more relaxed than the Continental variety. I wait to be corrected on any of these points.

The British too polite? Hm, and the Germans still won't walk on the grass, but at least they made a go of a revoltion in 1918/19.

Until you realise that the gullible tossers were almost immediately bought off by meaningless promises by the King, who quickly reneged on them, rounded up the ringleaders and bumped them off.

Worked for Ceaucescu when dealing with the miners too. For a while at least. They were tossers though, as their activities in 1990 - marching to Bucharest to beat the shit out of anyone daring to criticise the 'new' order and smash up the opposition press while they're at it.

I diodn't say that methyr was an English rebellion.

I pointed out that ben G neglected to mention the last two armed insurrection in England, the Monmouth Rebellion, and the bristol riots of 1830, which was incidently on a much bigger scale than the methyr uprising.

Sue R,

you left that nice little bit off the end,

about the English invading Ireland in 1170, only 838 years ago and we still see the remnants today

Sue R: yes you are right about Jo Moore. We were all in the LCC at the time and our participation in the LPYS summer camp was intended to be a "character building" experience. John hoped that it would toughen it up - and it certainly seemed to have that effect on Jo!

I went to Manchester a few years after John and Clive Bradley, but I do remember him Alan Johnson, Paul Gamble, Jane Ashworth, et al arguing ferociously about the evils of Zionism. They were boring about it then and 20 years later I still find them very boring on the subject.

Sorry for diverting slightly.

(Apologies off topic)

Conor

Ah Manchester memories again. On the basis of previous exchanges I thought this was a can you didn't like opening up that much. Don't worry not going there.

I too remember 84 LPYS summer camp, however in the context of your comment the year was more infamous for the banning of the J Soc at Sunderland Poly. This event defined SO/AWL, and those you name, forever as "zionists" in the eyes of the idiot left. That you recollect, but wrongly describe, their support of Palestinian solidarity is interesting and also potentially helpful. When the identical views are expressed today the self same idiot left believes that such views are spoken in bad faith, especially in the UCU debate.

You are right the day-by-day monotony of opposing and exposing left antisemitism is boring.

SPP - now who might you be?

Er, Monmouth is in Wales too...

Wales in the 1830s and 1840s was as insurrectionary as Ireland, if not more so... the rural peasantry were engaged in direct action to scrap the Tollbooths (the Rebecca Riots); the secretive Scotch Cattle were engaged in similar direct action in the coalfields; Merthyr 1831 saw the Red Flag raised as a symbol of working-class revolt for the first time as ironworkers occupied the town for 5 days against the military; The Newport Rising of 1839 was another example of Chartist direct action in which dozens were killed by the military.
Even small towns such as Newtown in mid Wales were gripped by riot (Chartist influenced). The Mold riots in N E Wales (1869) saw miners gunned down by militia from Chester after attempting to send their mine manager on a one-way journey back to England.
Plenty of Welsh history is about compromise and squalid reformism but there's some fantastic episodes of revolt in there too.

Sigh, Dave. You're not a moron just because you're left wing, you're a moron because you can't be fucking bothered to read, you know, a guy called Edward... - Thompson, was that it? -, who completely anhilated this sort of stupid(er) argument. What's next? Are you going to complain about the sorry state of the UK's airports?

I don't want to sound like 'Sarah, Maid of Albion', but I'd like t point out to Modernity, that it was the Anglo-Normans who invaded Ireland. If you read Spenser's Fairie Queen, there's quite a lot in there about the 'Old English'. Anyway, I've been thinking overnight, was Anglo-Saxon society less feudal than Norman? I'm not suggesting that it was egalaterian, but I wonder if the divisions were less? Also, the fact we haven't been beset by civil wars must mean that English people are less militarised and used to handling weapons. Or maybe, it is all genetic?

SP: I do not have any problems discussing the evolution of my own political views, I just have a problem with people who tell lies about them. Something which your friends have done on a number of occasions over the last couple of years.

I do remember the Sunderland Poly J-Soc issue, but only peripherally. There was a period when some crazy Trots used to try and ban Jewish Societies as racist - which was a clearly anti-semitic action - and NUS would always condemn it as such. There were debates about it at successive NUS conferences in the period that I was actively involved in student politics (1982/1986).

I don't remember exactly when Sunderland Poly was in the frame for that although I suppose that was the point when SO changed its line on the issue (and a good thing too).

As Dave commented in a previous piece here (and at Liberal Conspiracy) there is probably no debate so characterised by wilful distortion, obfuscation, over-emotionalism, deliberate bad faith, polarisation, ill-tempered malicious mudslinging and widespread playing of the man rather than the ball than the Israel/Palestine issue.

"I pointed out that Ben G neglected to mention the last two armed insurrection in England"

Hey, I did say it was only a handful! I'm sure a decent list five times the size could be compiled.

Sue R,

aye right enough, was the Plantation of Ireland a Norman thing too?

despite all the radicalism and "debates", the English still used the Levellers to suppress the Irish

so did that radicalism count for much?

probably not, much like today?

Conor

Allegations of lying require proper substantiation. As I said above you, at least, misrepresent or misremember the views of those you name.

The change in SO position, to which your refer, was from DSS to 2 States and not with regard to opposition to antisemitism. As Dave, and others e.g. Bob from Brockley, demonstrate it is entirely possible to hold a DSS position without being dragged into antisemitism. This had no bearing on S Poly.

I think, as you suggest, your memory simply fails you with regard to S. Poly. The main mover was an ex CP sabbatical. SWSS subsequently did some cheer leading and GUPS locally and nationally hardly covered themselves in glory. Neither was obtaining NUS condemnation the fait accompli you seem to imply and the issue ran far, far, far too long before decisive action. Neither was your wing of NOLS without divisions on the issue, if only tactical, there were some very fervent anti-Zionists in your ranks. (And uncritical support for "national liberation" movements was very prevalent at the time). NOLS and the NUS leadership consequently walked on eggshells over the issue.

Your final sentence accurately describes the atmosphere at the time.

Dave apologies again for going off topic will make this the last one.

Conor: "playing of the man rather than the ball"...

Telling people they're boring, obviously, not being an example of this. You, meanwhile, are endlessly entertaining.

SPP - once more I'm trying to put a face to you. Ah well.

Modernity: History is a process, just because it was one thing once does not mean that it will be like that forever. History is not absolute, it is affected by all sorts of variables. Wasn't the point about the Irish was that they were Catholics? and as such a threat to Protestant England. That and the risk of alliances with Spain and France. You really must see history and events in context.

Clive and Simon:

Well let's clear this up then (apologies Dave, but it does relate to your previous post and I would like to bury this issue once and for all).

I can remember having "heated debates" on the issue of Palestine/Israel with members of Socialist Organiser in the period 1982/1984 at which all the people I named took a hard-line anti-Zionist position. I did not think that you denied that - in fact Simon's first post referred to that reference as being "potentially helpful". As Simon says, your position changed sometime around 1984 when you moved from a DSS to a two state position. I referred to your previous position as being anti-Zionist (which it was) not antisemitic - a charge that I would not use lightly. If I am misrepresenting you and the people that I named thought that Zionism was a good thing in that period, you can clarify this now.

Simon also seems to think that I am reluctant to discuss the views that I held on something when I was a student. He, of course, knows that this is not true, because we did discuss the issue in an exchange at the DSTFW a few months ago - at the end of which he concluded that his memory had simply been faulty.

The allegation that I ever supported the terrorist bombing of pubs or buses is, of course, entirely false and defamatory, but it has appeared on a number of occasions in the comments sections of the DSTFW website, Harry’s Place and – once – at Comment is Free. In the latter case I got the opportunity to ask the person who had made it where he heard it from. He said he was told it by some former members of Socialist Organiser.

Obviously, I am not holding either of you responsible for what some of your former members said. It is probably just one of these urban myths that gets spread through stupid pub talk. However, since I have been detained under the prevention of terrorism act and have lost several friends to terrorist attacks in recent years, I think that you can probably understand why I find it so objectionable.

Again, apologies to Dave. I actually only came on here to have a discussion about the Brazilian "beach" revolt.

Conor - Lordy, all I said was it wasn't nice to say people are boring. I don't actually remember speaking to you, to be honest, certainly not having a 'heated debate' about anything. And I have had a two states position since 1981. Yes, sorry, Dave, off topic, won't say anything else about this.

ahh I see, Sue R, the contextualisation of English brutality?

still the Levellers were radical in Putney, shame about Ireland eh? good to see that the English colonial mindset is not fully dead :)

I’d apologise for going off the ball but clearly part of the above discussion has irrevocably slid.

It sounds incredible that LCC types would dare to turn up in the Forest of Dean in the Trot bearpit that it was. I just don’t remember their presence but they were probably completely intimidated - good. It’s just such a shame that us and the Militant didn’t overcome our sectarian differences and together bump off the LCCers and bury them in the woods there - early 21st century Britain may have turned out a bit different (Derek Hatton as PM?)

Clive, I'm you - in your student flat (in Longsight or Levenshulme with your mates -the N Irish guy (Tony) and Paul Muddle?) and your revolutionary socialist politics. I remember your talks on stuff like the Histadrut. How did it all go so wrong? No, actually I’m Judith Bonner, I admit it.

But back with a free kick. I’ve never heard of Thailand being a cauldron of class struggle and revolution (and I don’t think this is because of my ignorance). But then, in today’s IHT I read -

“Labor unions representing 200,000 workers at 43 state enterprises said they would cut off water, electricity and telephone service to government offices beginning Tuesday.

Thai Airways workers also said they would delay flights beginning Tuesday, and public bus workers said they would halt service on 80 percent of Bangkok's 3,800 buses.

In the face of this escalation, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej canceled a planned trip to Japan on Tuesday. Because of a sit-in at his office compound, which had reached its sixth day, he has been forced to work elsewhere since last week.
Hundreds of railway employees continued on Monday a strike that had cut off service between Bangkok and the far northern and southern parts of the country. The strike had idled more than half the cargo trains scheduled to run Monday...

"This action is unavoidable," Sawit Kaewwan, secretary general of a federation of unions representing state employees, said in announcing the cutoff of utilities. "It is the way to protect our basic democratic rights."

I don’t know what organisation, if any, I would have been if I had grown up in Chang Mai but I think I wouldn’t have thought revolution was near. I daresay that we would have then easily spotted the careerists in Bangkok accurately in the way that I and my comrades did clearly correctly identify the LCC types then as such - including apparently the Home Secretary (I’m surprised Mann didn’t make it further - so far. Maybe he deployed his venom too early?)

And idling away in Bangkok year after year, with many former comrades having given up the ghost , or joined the rising liberal parties, I hope I may have kept the view that socialist revolution is possible. And then when even “the secretary general of a federation of unions representing state employees” has moved way beyond economism, I think I would have been proved right.

If Bangkok, why not Britain?

Those who are capitalist politicians - from the ex LCC types to conservatives the world over - are responsible for a world with endemic disease, poverty and war. History will never be played out although those responsible for such preventable disasters will one day be forced from the stage. Those reading this may yet see it.

Er, seren, the Monmouth rebellion was named after the Duke of Monmouth, not the town of Monmouth. The Duke of Monmouth's army marched through Dorset and Somerset, and after defeat at Sedgemoor, the participants were brutally dealt with by Judge Jeffreys (and others) at the Bloody Assizes.

Bizarrely, several pubs in Dorchester seem to be named after Jeffreys, despite his viciousness (300 were executed and 800 transported).

There doesn't seem anything particularly modern to me about the attitude where you shoot the messeger because you don't like the message, Modernity. Wasn't that what Egyptian Pharoahs and Roman Emperors did?

and Scotland, 1820 "A Committee of Organisation for Forming a Provisional Government put placards around the streets of Glasgow late on Saturday 1 April, calling for an immediate national strike. On Monday 3 April work stopped in a wide area of central Scotland and in a swirl of disorderly events a small group marched towards the Carron Company ironworks to seize weapons, but while stopped at Bonnymuir they were attacked by Hussars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_War

and Free Derry

and the Invergordon Mutiny

and 1974 - Heath 'back me or the miners'

and, and,

Modernity is being annoying. To be honest the Levellers weren't well organised enough to merit definition as a homogenous group with clear aims and principles. I remember reading an article about the Levellers and Ireland. Anyone subscribed to JSTOR can see it here http://www.jstor.org/pss/2639195. It seems that everyone at the time picked on the Levellers for being doveish cheese eating surrender monkeys who didn't want to undermine the natural rights and liberties of the Irish.

Also, I read a review of a new book out arguing that Cromwell was relatively humane in Ireland, at least by contemporary standards.

Actually I a being lazy - It was The rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, not Monmouths rebellion.

I would further concur that the New Model Army was relitevly mercifull and humane by European Standards QV The thirty years war.

Now I may be a few years older than the Trots who sought enlightenent in the Forest in the 1980's.

I can remeber the attitude of those who lived by but not in, the Forest.

Train Driver " We are about to stop in the Forest of Dean - Please set your attitudes back 300 years"

And I can also remember a "Militant Readers Meeting" in a pub in St John Street Islington in the early 70's.

Lynne (What ever her name was, prominant RSL er) arriving late. " I agree with every word that Comrade Ted Grant has said"

Hissed " He has not spoken yet !"

Lynne the Millie " Oh!. I agree with every word Comrade Grant will say !"

Dave - Do you remember that attitude ?

GW

Sue R,

shoot the messenger?

never, but not much modern about English rule in Ireland.

I am just curious as to how the English see their Civil War and how it is painted as largely benign (any inconvenient bits left out)

not that I am too surprised, its just another display of English parochialism and let's not forget that yesterday's English radicals often turn into tomorrow's's conservatives (with a very, very small c)

Mod

The English have managed the very difficult task of making the Civil war very boring. Possibly why we have no revolutionary tradition as Dave remarks. The Chartists and the Anglo-Jacobins were truely scrubbed clean in Victorian historiography.

The Civil war was of course a incredible period, much of it based around a virulent and nasty anti-papist ideology, the font of modern English nationalism. The crisis of 1641-42 was over who might smite the Irish better, the King or the House. Of course, Charles' troops in Ireland continued a brutal campaign even as the civil war at home started up only to be massarced back home after Nantwich. The greater blood bath when Cromwell arrived was due to the experience of the New Model (who would defeated the best Spain, the foremost military power of the time, had to offer) and his own skill as a general.

The proto-socialism of the Levellers was inseperable from their protestant faith, their utopian future was to be Jerusalem reborn. Having failed to take control of England, it is of little wonder they sought 'redemption' fighting the great Satan in Eire

As for the viciousness of the war, the figures I have (from Charles Carlton's 'Going to the Wars') are as follows -
England nearly 200K dead or 3.7% of the population
Scotland 60K or 6%
Ireland 618K or 41%

If you have a reference for that book on Cromwell, Free-Born, I would appreciate it

Seren - "Monmouth is in Wales too"

Well as you know that is disputed!

But the MOnmouth rebellion refers to the Duke of Monmouth, the progressive uprising to continue the English revolution and overthrow the Stuart restoration. The rebellion itself was in Somerset, starting in Bridewater, he marched his army towards Bristol, but stalled at Keynsham, before retreating and then being defeated at the battle of Sedgemoor.

thanks socialrepublican,

that's a much more satisfactory explanation

Social Republican, the book is called 'God's Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland' by Michael O Siochru.

Here are some reviews, one of which contradicts what I said earlier and thinks the book confirms that Cromwell deserves the reputation as proper bastard.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/24/history?gusrc=rss&feed=books

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article4540922.ece

I guess the answer is to read it!

I'm still not convinced by this talk of the Levellers going to Ireland. It was the New Model Army that went to Ireland, and since the New Model did not adopt 'Levellerism' in 1647-49 (the army mutinees were successfully crushed) I don't see how this can be interpreted as Leveller support of the Irish campaign.

None of the principle Leveller figures (Lilburne, Overton, Walwyn) served in Ireland or condoned what Cromwell was doing there, if I'm not mistaken. They were too busy being imprisoned, exiled, or keeping their heads down to try to stay alive.

academic free born John wrote:

"I'm still not convinced by this talk of the Levellers going to Ireland."

I didn't say that

I wrote:

"I forget, and I'll happily be corrected by those who studied English history at school, but didn't a chunk of the Levellers get sent over to Ireland to do Cromwell's (spit) dirty work?"

now you tell me?

I (unlike a lot of others) make no claims to have read much on the English Civil War, I was hoping that one of you would-be academics might enlighten us,?

but that is probably a bit of a forlorn hope?

History isn't about dates and facts, dear boy, it's all themes and ideas and hoping nobody sees through your bluffing!

I was actually replying to Social Republican suggesting Levellers sought redemption by fighting in Ireland.

indeed, it isn't old chap,

the theme here is that the English (whether allegedly radical or the uling classes) have much of the same preoccupation, sanitising their own history or ignoring the inconvenient bits of it

but then again us, the feckless under classes, never studied much but we can still see through your middle class vacant bull shit, which passes for historical analysis

pip pip and all that bollock, old chap :)

Ta Free-Born

Having read a few articles on the matter, the leadership (possibly too srong a term) of the Levellers was split over Ireland. English Sovereignty was mostly assumed but there were many pleas for tolerance and seeking an accomandation with the rebels. Overton and Lilburne kept stumm as one might expect given their incarceration as 'Popish-lover' labels were a common smear against the Levellers. In addition they sought a common front with the London Independants who were very much proponants of the Irish Crusade. To some, service in Ireland was the last straw, condemning the Commonwealth to reside in the imfamy of Charles Stuart. Indeed some reports suggest the Burford killings were over a refusal of Levellers to go smite the Irish.

If I may quote a fellow traveller, Walwyn -
'...the Irish did no more but what we would have done our selves, if it had been our case... that they were a better natured people then we, and said why should they not enjoy the liberty of their Conscience'

May I suggest -
N Carlin 'The Levellers and the Conquest of Ireland in 1649', The Historical Journal, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1987), pp. 269-288

C Durston '"Let Ireland Be Quiet": Opposition in
England to the Cromwellian Conquest of
Ireland', History Workshop Journal, 1986 21(1):105-112

As far as I've read, service in Ireland was 'voluntary', so some ex-Levellers within the ranks, blacklisted at home, might well have faced little choice, indeed the protesdent crusade offered by service might well have been an inducement. Once in a eschalon of horror such as Cromwell campaign, I would suggest an 'Ordinary Men' scenario took over, based on unit cohesion and coersion and a sense of being in a new moral universe of out and out struggle.

Lest us not forget the Ture Levellers of Gerrard Winstanley, nice to know that micro-sects are a long running English tradition

very informative, socialrepublican, I am glad at least one person knows some of the English Civil war!

Nee bother, Mod

And if i may, good work over the Delich affair.

As I say, the civil war of the five/four nations deserve a passionate treatment and a public discussion of it's legacy, equal to other great global events

The Civil War involved Scotland and Ireland just as much as England. Don't rush to say it in inappropriate circumstances, but Oliver Cromwell conquered Scotland, a feat no English King ever pulled off.

I think perhaps you should take a look at the histories of the countries you compare us with, and then decide which path was best. Ten million dead in Soviet Russia ? The 'revolutionary' slaughters in the Vendee ?

As Peter Hitchens put it "Britain is the only virgin in a continent of rape victims"