One casualty of the coronavirus pandemic and the temporary cessation of meetings and labour movement events has been Labour Briefing which is currently appearing only in PDF format.
London Labour Briefing was originally founded in 1980 by supporters of the Chartist Minority Tendency as a broad and non-sectarian publication of the Labour left. The magazine reflected a range of views from the local-government left leaders such as Livingstone and Knight, left MPs such as Corbyn, Labour activists and members or former members of various Trotskyist groups active in the Party.
In 1983 Labour Briefing began to issue a national supplement which came to be incorporated into a number of local Labour Briefings for example Birmingham Labour Briefing which would be issued as an 8 page local magazine wrapped around the national Briefing.
Other local Briefing supporters groups issued magazines, newsletters and pamphlets in a variety formats with varying frequency.
In the later 1980s Labour Briefing was issued as a tabloid newspaper, of which we have the pilot issue and an Election Special only.
Our Labour Briefing archives contain a number of folders for the Briefings of which we currently have issues.
We have a substantial collection of documents from Camden LB, from Devon and Exeter (which also has its own detailed Wikipedia entry) and from Birmingham.
We have single items from Humber, Haringey, Brighton, Scotland and a Youth pamphlet and we are also aware of the existence at some point of Labour Briefings in a number of other boroughs, towns and cities.
Over time we will be adding to our collections of LB materials and we will be adding a large number of the main London Labour Briefing magazine at least.
If any readers have copies of local bulletins, please get in touch!
Thanks in particular to Fred for the Camden materials and Dave for Devon / Exeter.
Splits and Fusions 