The Rise And Fall Of The Labour Left

The return of British socialism: Where does it comes from? Why now? And where is it going? The remarkable advance of "Corbynism" did not emerge from nowhere. It is the product of developments in socialist and working-class politics over the past forty years and more. The Thatcher era witnessed a wholesale attack on the post war consensus and welfare state, through a regime of deregulation, attacks on the unions, privatisations, and globalisation. However, at the same time, there has been a persistent resistance to the growing powers of neo-liberalism - yet this side of the story is rarely told as it was considered to be a history of defeat. Yet out of this struggle emerged a thoroughly modern socialism. This book is essential reading for those who want to know where Corbynism comes from: the policies, personalities and moments of resistance that has produced this new horizon. This includes the story of power struggles within the Labour Party, and the eventual defeat of New Labour. The movements outside it - trade unions, feminists groups, anti-fascists activists, anti-war protestors - that have driven the policies of the movement forward. And the powerful influence of international groups that have shaped the potential for a global progressive politics.

This volume of essays constitutes the first history of Labour and left-wing politics in the decade when Margaret Thatcher reshaped modern Britain. Leading scholars explore aspects of left-wing culture, activities and ideas at a time when social democracy was in crisis. There are articles about political leadership, economic alternatives, gay rights, the miners' strike, the Militant Tendency and the politics of race. The book also situates the crisis of the left in international terms as the socialist world began to collapse. Tony Blair's New Labour disavowed the 1980s left, associating it with failure, but this volume argues for a more complex approach. Many of the causes it championed are now mainstream, suggesting that the time has come to reassess 1980s progressive politics, despite its undeniable electoral failures. With this in mind, the contributors offer ground-breaking research and penetrating arguments about the strange death of Labour Britain.

'THE POLITICAL BOOK OF THE YEAR' Tim Shipman A blistering narrative exposé of infighting, skulduggery and chaos in Corbyn's Labour party, now revised and updated. * A Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and i Newspaper Book of the Year * Left Out tells, for the first time, the astonishing full story of Labour's recent transformation and historic defeat. Drawing on unrivalled access, this blistering exposé moves from the peak of Jeremy Corbyn's popularity and the shock hung parliament of 2017 to Labour's humbling in 2019 and the election of Keir Starmer. It reveals a party at war with itself, and puts the reader in the room as tensions boil over, sworn enemies forge unlikely alliances and lifelong friendships are tested to breaking point. This is the ultimate account of the greatest experiment seen in British politics for a generation. 'Gripping... Every bit as good as people say' Guardian 'Reads like a thriller...told with panache and pace' Financial Times 'The definitive post-mortem of the Corbyn project' Sunday Times

The remarkable advance of "Corbynism" did not emerge from nowhere. It is the product of developments in socialist and working-class politics over the past forty years and more. The Thatcher era witnessed a wholesale attack on the post war consensus and welfare state, through a regime of deregulation, attacks on the unions, privatisations, and globalisation. However, at the same time, there has been a persistent resistance to the growing powers of neo-liberalism - yet this side of the story is rarely told as it was considered to be a history of defeat. Yet out of this struggle emerged a thoroughly modern socialism. This book is essential reading for those who want to know where Corbynism comes from: the policies, personalities and moments of resistance that has produced this new horizon. This includes the story of power struggles within the Labour Party, and the eventual defeat of New Labour. The movements outside it - trade unions, feminists groups, anti-fascists activists, anti-war protestors - that have driven the policies of the movement forward. And the powerful influence of international groups that have shaped the potential for a global progressive politics.

A smart and succinct history of the Labour left

The historical involvement of Jews in the political Left is well known, but far less attention has been paid to the political and ideological factors which attracted Jews to the Left. After the Holocaust and the creation of Israel many lost their faith in universalistic solutions, yet lingering links between Jews and the Left continue to exist.

A new and essential history of the Labour new left from Tony Benn to Jeremy Corbyn. Jeremy Corbyn’s rapid ascent to the leadership of the Labour Party, driven by a groundswell of popular support particularly among the young, was met at the time by a baffled media. Just where did Jeremy Corbyn come from? In Searching for Socialism, Leo Panitch and Colin Leys argue that it is only by understanding Corbyn’s roots in the Bennite Labour New Left’s long struggle to transcend the limits of “parliamentary socialism” and democratise the party, as a precondition for democratising the state, can you understand his surge to become leader of the party. Closely analyzing the forces inside the party aligned against Corbyn’s leadership, Panitch and Leys explain what happened between the validation of the Corbyn project in the 2017 election, while advancing an ambitious programme of democratic socialist measures unmatched anywhere since the 1970s, and the electoral defeat amidst the Brexit conjuncture of 2019. They argue that while this defeat marked the farthest point to which the generation formed in the 1970s was able to carry the Labour new left project, it seems unlikely that the new generation of activists will quickly see any other way forward than continuing the struggle inside the Labour Party, so as to fundamentally change it. In the face of the contradictions being generated by twenty-first-century capitalism, and the need for discovering and developing new political forms adequate to addressing them, this book is required reading for democratic socialists, not just in Britain but everywhere.