The Fall And Rise Of The British Left

The Rise and Fall of the Labour Left

The Socialist Ideas of the British Left’s Alternative Economic Strategy

This book provides the first book-length study of the political and economic ideas of the British left’s Alternative Economic Strategy in the 1970s and early 1980s. Discussing the AES’s approaches to capitalism, the nation state and the working class, it argues that existing academic accounts have significantly overstated the radicalism of the strategy. Perhaps more notable, especially in the light of its stated ‘revolutionary’ aims, was the extent of its moderation – its continuities with post-war Labour revisionism, its marked reluctance to look beyond the market economy, the degree of its preoccupation with Britain’s global-economic status, and its inability to break with Labourist politics of class co-operation in the national interest. While the book argues that the AES was the last ‘class politics’ socialist initiative in mainstream British politics, it also explores the ways in which its ideas perhaps prepared the way for New Labour in the 1990s, and its relationship with 'Corbynism' since 2015.

Is Socialism Possible in Britain?

Selected as one of the 15 best political and current affairs books of 2022 by The Times Is Socialism Possible in Britain? analyses Jeremy Corbyn's tenure as Labour leader and the prospects for parliamentary socialism in a post-Corbyn Britain. Lively and insightful, it is informed by an insider's view of the most radical period in Labour's history. A veteran of the Stop the War Coalition, Andrew Murray was seconded to Corbyn's office from the Unite trade union and witnessed an extraordinary daily bombardment from sections of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the media. He candidly assesses the leadership's response to the antisemitism controversy and the dilemmas of Brexit, as well as Keir Starmer's restoration of a turgid neo-Blairism. The problems that beset Corbyn are likely to confront any similar political project. Is Socialism Possible in Britain? explores how they can be more effectively addressed in the future - a future which we must hope is not so far away.