The End of Parliamentary Socialism: From New Left to New Labour

by Colin Leys, Leo Panitch, David Coates (Contributor)

This trenchant account of the last twenty-five years of the British Labour Party argues that Tony Blair’s modernizing tendency was profoundly mistaken in asserting that the only alternative to traditional social democracy and narrow parliamentarianism was an acceptance of neo-liberalism. In blaming the Labour left, rather than the social-democratic right for the party’s years in the electoral wilderness, the modernizers rejected the creativity and energy which the party’s New Left had mobilized, and without which their own professed aim of democratic renewal was unlikely to be realized. In this new edition, the authors, in collaboration with David Coates, review the debate in light of the Blair government’s first three years in office.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, British Literature

360 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1981

Reviews

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding and essential work on the history of the Labour party from the 1964-70 Wilson government to 2001 and the end of Blair's first term. It focuses particularly on what Panitch and Leys call the 'Labour new left' from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, the pivot being the 1979-83 period when the movement was at its peak. The book's core focus is on the intra-party struggle to try and democratise the Labour party's internal structures, especially the selection (and reselection) of MPs, members' control of policy formulation, and the mechanism for electing the party leader. In describing this struggle it recounts an often intricate sequence of manoeuvres involving a range of political actors and institutions, always with clarity, moving from the early 70s attempts to force the PLP to actually carry out the policies in the party manifesto, through the achievement of a number of key party reforms in the early 80s, to the almost total reversal of those gains by first Neil Kinnock and then Tony Blair, the latter taking the centralisation of power within the party, and the disempowerment of party members, to wholly new extremes. Alongside recounting this political struggle, it examines the policy issues at stake in this fluctuating distribution of power within the party. It looks at the political-economic context of Britain in the 70s - the collapsing viability of the traditional supports of Keynesian social democracy - and the ideas of Tony Benn and the Alternative Economic Strategy developed in an attempt to respond to that context. It considers the performance of the 64-70 and 74-79 Wilson and then Callaghan governments. The central point the book makes is that the distribution of power within the party fundamentally shapes what political strategies and policies can be pursued; the traditional power of the PLP and, latterly under Kinnock and Blair, the leader within the party are fundamental to Labour serving as, in effect, a means of adjusting the British working class to accept whatever they are required to by British capitalism and its crises.

If the book has weaknesses, they are these: (i) despite the book being dedicated to Ralph Miliband's memory, and being in effect a continuation and development of his classic work 'Parliamentary Socialism', Miliband himself and his analysis of the events recounted is barely mentioned across the book. The same goes for most of the major intellectuals of the British new left. A few of Raymond Williams's essays from the early 1980s are mentioned, and I think one is discussed briefly. That's about it. Instead there is a chapter and more devoted to analysis of the ideas of Tony Benn and some of the people involved in devising the AES. Does this really accurately reflect the intellectual influences of the Labour new left? Moreover, Benn's own ideas are not given quite as searching critical treatment as one might have liked - for instance, his aversion to electoral reform goes entirely unmentioned. (ii) The wider social, economic and political changes British society underwent in the period covered by the book are addressed somewhat patchily. For instance, the effects of media coverage on actors in the party struggle is frequently mentioned, but changes in the media itself are never mentioned. Nor is there much sociological analysis of the changing British job structure or sociological composition of Labour's vote or, crucially, its membership in the late 70s through to the 90s. (iii) The significance of the collapse of actually existing communism and the advent of a broader 'end of history' ideology is not mentioned in discussing the reasons for the rise of New Labour. (iv) There is surprisingly little on the actual record of the Labour left in local government - the GLC etc. There are other works out there on this subject, some referenced in the book, but it might have aided the argument to describe in more detail what the Labour new left actually did with power when it had it at the local level.

However, none of those criticisms should detract from what is an excellent book, which it is particularly essential Labour supporters read and absorb.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's the end. And the sky is falling. So we need more money to do more of the same. And do employ us as experts because we have wrote more books about it.

[Matt Fodor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good book covering the transformation of the Labour Party from "labourism" to a remaking of the party under Clintonite lines. Combines Panitch's critique of social democracy and parliamentarism from the left with Leys' more policy-wonky analysis of think-tanks. David Coates' hand in the conclusion was a nice addition.