The Fall and Rise of the British Left

by Andrew Murray

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.

Genres: Politics, History, British Literature, Nonfiction

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 17, 2019

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Murray was Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Murray became a noted missionary leader. His father was a Scottish Presbyterian serving the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, and his mother had connections with both French Huguenots and German Lutherans. This background to some extent explains his ecumenical spirit. He was educated at Aberdeen University, Scotland, and at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. After ordination in 1848 he served pastorates at Bloemfontein, Worcester, Cape Town, and Wellington. He helped to found what are now the University College of the Orange Free State and the Stellenbosch Seminary. He served as Moderator of the Cape Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church and was president of both the YMCA (1865) and the South Africa General Mission (1888-1917), now the Africa Evangelical Fellowship.

He was one of the chief promoters of the call to missions in South Africa. This led to the Dutch Reformed Church missions to blacks in the Transvaal and Malawi. Apart from his evangelistic tours in South Africa, he spoke at the Keswick and Northfield Conventions in 1895, making a great impression. upon his British and American audiences. For his contribution to world missions he was given an honorary doctorate by the universities of Aberdeen (1898) and Cape of Good Hope(1907).

Murray is best known today for his devotional writings, which place great emphasis on the need for a rich, personal devotional life. Many of his 240 publications explain in how he saw this devotion and its outworking in the life of the Christian. Several of his books have become devotional classics. Among these are Abide in Christ, Absolute Surrender, With Christ in the School of Prayer, The Spirit of Christ and Waiting on God.

Reviews

[Carlos Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally really enjoyed and got a lot out of this book. A worthwhile and interesting read for those interested in the British left. The last chapter gets irritatingly Brexity, as Andrew puts forward the standard Lexit argument without engaging with the well-known critique of that argument. Meanwhile his overview of the international socialist movement barely mentions China, which seems like a fairly significant omission given the progress the PRC has made in poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and science/tech development. Anyway, a valuable and well-written book.

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not the audience for this book. I'm not British (although I'm British enough* to find his use of the term 'British' grating). I had thought it would be a history book, but it's a current affairs book, which is mostly settling scores from the last fifty years of 'British' politics. And Corbyn lost, so there's more than a bit of sadness/hilarity/irritation at the approach Murray takes here, which is, shall we say, bullish. He memorably slams Polly Toynbee for suggesting that Corbyn's Labour Party had lost touch with the class that it claimed to represent. Well, anyway. I imagine there'll be no apologies to Polly.

More concerning is Murray's repeated insistence that the left can't just re-run the twentieth century politics and policies, while immediately after talking about how the only way the left can win is by strengthening trade unions and massaging class consciousness (e.g., people who are no richer than Murray but oppose his politics are 'class-collaborationists,' while those who are richer than him and oppose his politics are 'bosses' and 'elites'). The rhetoric, in other words, is appalling.

More concerning still is that that rhetoric gets in the way of thinking. Murray's world is entirely dualistic; there's us, on one side, and the bosses/elites/imperialists/racists/... on the other. Of course, this is not meant to be a nuanced history; it is designed to prop up a party and stand against the (utterly repulsive) Murdoch Empire narrative. So, perhaps this us vs them approach is essential for electoral politics? I would have thought demonizing anyone who doesn't entirely agree with you is a bad way to gain majorities in a democratic system, even one as fatuous and decayed as the 'British.'

But, as I said, I'm not the audience here. I put it to you, fair reader, that if you're reading this in 2020 or later, and you find unironic references to Lenin's wisdom painful, then you probably aren't the audience, either.

*: My parents were both English, migrated to Australia.

[Andy Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andrew Murray has done the left a real service with this book. He charts the fluctuating fortunes of the Labour left in a readable and accessible way and draws a link between the hegemony of the neo-liberals in the 80s and 90s, to the rise of the Corbyn movement today. Murray never fails to point out that it is the class system of capitalism and all its ills (not the EU, not Brexit or this or that right wing leader) that is the real cause of poverty and inequality in the world. His book offers hope for a socialist future based on mutual cooperation and reading it you can see how the past has brought us to where we are now. Anyone on the left should read this excellent book.

[Ewan Lindsay]

Brutal reading this in 2025 with Starmer as PM and New Labour 2: The issue the first time was we didn’t move to the centre enough

Anyway, the history in this serves less as a comprehensive overview of the left in Britain and how it’s been shaped and changed over the years, and instead is more of a pretext for the story of Corbyn and his (at the time it was written) ascendancy. This isn’t necessarily a complaint as I’m okay with that too, it’s just something that I would have liked to have known going into this and expecting a detailed political historiography.

As it is, the historical coverage gives a decent explanation of the gist of the state of the left from the 70s to today (i.e. 2019), getting notably more in depth as it moves forward and the author describes more stuff he experienced and remembers himself. Murray’s writing is generally pretty good at providing the relevant concepts with some supporting historical details (the New Labour chapters are the peak of the book in terms of this history/details-politics/theory balance) and only occasional detours into some weird, niche academic leftist bullshit that at max a dozen people ever cared about (its interspersed throughout but the key example I think of is the New Times bit in ch3).

The final two chapters are where the history component ends (apart from the several-pages-long dissection of all the specific neoliberal steps taken over the past several decades that led to the Grenfell Tower fire which I really liked) and it becomes purely his personal political spiel about the virtues (the most retroactively painful section of the whole book) and inevitability of Corbyn, with some token acknowledgment of the obstacles against them. I’d like to disassemble where he went wrong with his analysis here but I was 14 when Corbyn lost in 2019 and I don’t actually know myself. Murray did write another book after that tho (Is Socialism Possible In Britain) so I’ll have to check that out at some point to fill in the gap in my knowledge.

[Peter Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting analysis of the history of the Left in the Labour Party and the rise of Corbyn. However, given that Corbyn was gone within a few months of the book's publication, and now the Left is almost non-existent within Labour, the concluding chapters of the book proved hopelessly optimistic.

[ItsReallyOliver · Rating 1 out of 5]

The insufferable smugness makes for some funny reading after the 2019 election. There are some midwit tier critiques of neo-liberalism but as per usual with leftists their solutions miss the mark. Your ideas certainly are 'radical' but so was Ozzy snorting ants.

[Senioreuge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book flows, while it has a lot of references to emphasise various points and arguments made throughout the work, they never become burdensome due to the style. Highly recommend this despite having an issue with the title.

[Ben Lismore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great history but the more recent sections are so full of pre-2019 GE hope :(