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Labour Party Politics and the Working Class

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Steven Beackon
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Extract

By the late 1960s the shift of the Labour party away from its traditional base among the urban working class appeared to be gaining momentum. The opinion polls showed a marked swing of working-class sentiment away from the party, and the policies advanced during the period, especially with regard to prices and incomes and industrial relations, hardly seemed designed to satisfy the redistributive concerns traditionally imputed to the working class. Indeed the government's overriding concern with the problem of the economy during a period in which the Labour party had a large majority over all other parties in the House of Commons was seen by one commentator as the final act of a tragic farce entitled ‘The Decline and Fall of Social Democracy’. Clearly this conclusion was drawn somewhat prematurely: in the 1970s there is fragmented evidence to suggest that the Labour party has regained the votes of a number of its traditional supporters who had previously defected, just as there is evidence that the ‘left’ of the party is asserting itself. However, the events of the early 1970s are not sufficient to refute the proposition that some kind of fundamental change either has occurred, or is occurring, in the relationship between the Labour party and its traditional supporters. Even if the curtain has yet to fall, there is no reason to believe that the play has not begun.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , April 1976 , pp. 231 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 Hindess, Barry, The Decline of Working Class Politics (London: Paladin, 1971), p. 170.Google Scholar

2 Goldthorpe, John et al. , The Affluent Worker: Political Attitudes and Behaviour (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 73–82Google Scholar. The utility of the distinction between ‘affluent’ and ‘traditional’ workers has been questioned by Crewe, Ivor in his paper ‘The Politics of “Affluent” and “Traditional” Workers in Britain: An Aggregate Data Analysis’, British Journal of Political Science, III (1973), 29–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 By closing the possibility of increased radicalism of the leadership Hindess effectively dismisses the argument put forward by Goldthorpe when he writes, ‘if the working class does in the long run become no more than one stratum within a system of classless inegalitarianism …then this solution will be…attributable to the fact that the political leaders of the working class chose this future for it’, The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 195Google Scholar. On this point see also Parkin, Frank, Class Inequality and Political Oder (London: Paladin, 1972), p. 98Google Scholar. For a comprehensive critique of this position based upon survey data see Chamberlain, C. W. and Moorhouse, H. F., ‘Lower Class Attitudes Towards the British Political System’, Sociological Review, XXII (1974), 503–25 especially at pp. 515–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 In this paper I use working class to mean those persons who fall into the Registrar General's occupational categories numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15 and middle class as categories 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 13.

5 Hindess, , Decline of Working Class Politics, p. 10.Google Scholar

6 There is another possible meaning – what Hindess calls the ‘social control’ aspect. This is a difficult aspect and would require a lengthy and detailed analysis. I therefore propose to leave all discussion of this out, although my position will be implicit in the final section of the paper.

7 Baxter, R., ‘The Working Class and Labour Politics’, Political Studies, xx (1972), 97–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Dowse, Robert, ‘The Decline of Working Class Politics’, British Journal of Sociology, XXIV (1973), 264–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 I use the same minimal definition of an activist as Hindess, that is, ‘one who attends ward meetings more or less regularly’, Hindess, , Decline of Working Class Politics, p. 58.Google Scholar

9 Hindess, , Decline of Working Class Politics, pp. 58, 59.Google Scholar

10 For details of the changes in the social background of the Labour party elite see Johnson, R. W., ‘The British Political Elite, 1955–1972’, European Journal of Sociology, XIV (1973), 35–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of the period before 1955 see Guttsman, W. L., The British Political Elite (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1968).Google Scholar

11 Hindess, , Decline of Working Class Politics, p. 164.Google Scholar

12 The statements were as follows: (1) eliminate the privileges of the upper classes, (2) bring the working class to power, (3) promote workers' control of industry, (4) promote international peace through co-operation with the U.N., (5) give ordinary people a greater say in government, (6) ensure greater equality and social justice. The first three statements were coded ‘class’, the last three ‘non-class’.

13 Activists were divided into two generations: those who joined the party before 1951 and those who joined after that year. The cut-off point was used for two reasons: it marked the end of the party's first extended period in office and also it marked the most obvious dividing line between activists in their replies to a question which sought to discover the personal relevance to the activist of a series of major political events covering the past half century.

14 Moorhouse, H. F. et al. , ‘Rent Strikes – Direct Action and the Working Class’, in Miliband, Ralph and Saville, John, eds., The Socialist Register 1972 (London: Merlin Press, 1972), pp. 133–56.Google Scholar

15 Moorhouse, et al. , ‘Rent Strikes’, p. 146.Google Scholar