Skip to main content
Reclaiming part of our heritage
CIARAN WALSH on why the local labour movement and left will be commemorating the Oxford Levellers this week

THE Levellers Day Festival held in Burford, Oxfordshire, during May is a well known feature of the radical calendar. 

It commemorates the execution of three Leveller soldiers after Oliver Cromwell suppressed the threatening and popular Leveller mutiny in the New Model Army. 

The movement in the army was a direct challenge to the grandees in Parliament: to the unjust oppressive dispensation they intended to replace absolute monarchy with; to the proposed colonial war of suppression and appropriation in Ireland; and also a cry for popular democracy and equality.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Helen Oclee-Brown at the International Brigade memorial in London in 2025 [Pic: Andrew Wiard]
Spanish Civil War 90th Anniversary / 4 July 2026
4 July 2026

HELEN OCLEE-BROWN on keeping alive the memory and spirit of the Brigaders

Meirian Jump with MML archivist Matt Dunne [Pic: Marx Memorial Library]
Spanish Civil War 90th Anniversary / 4 July 2026
4 July 2026

The Marx Memorial Library’s Spanish Collection remains a powerful tool for the working-class movement today, writes MML director MEIRIAN JUMP

Statue of Oliver Cromwell
Full Marx / 2 February 2026
2 February 2026

The selection, analysis and interpretation of historical ‘facts’ always takes place within a paradigm, a model of how the world works. That’s why history is always a battleground, declares the Marx Memorial Library

ANTI-FASCIST ART: The stained glass window in Belfast City Hall
Features / 29 September 2025
29 September 2025

JIM JUMP looks forward to the International Brigade Memorial Trust AGM taking place in Belfast later this week where the spirit of solidarity will be rekindled