A review by adamjames
A Party with Socialists in It: A History of the Labour Left by John McDonnell, Simon Hannah

4.0

A book seeking essentially to contextualise the rise of Corbyn as a historic shift in an ever present struggle in the Labour party between its left and right. His ascension to leadership was, for Simon Hannah, a passionate outburst of anger by ordinary members and a grassroots movement against a parliamentary establishment that had decided, since at least the 1980s, that the way to power and electability was to accept conservative economic principles, purge the "loony left" and discourage activism in attempts to woo right-wing press, and pivot the party away from working class interests in favour of the middle-class and bankers. And indeed, the history of Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair seems to show the complete failure of the rightwing of the party to actually win votes and push change; Kinnock failed repeatedly despite his McCarthy-esque purges, and Blair won thrice but at the cost of repelling roughly 5 million voters and more than halving the size of Labour Party membership - even while given the illusion of popular electability by the press and by the unrepresentative FPTP system. And, it needs to be said, during that time that he was in power, Blair pursued the Thatcherite economic policies that were so destructive to working class communities, took up the Tory sports of immigrant-bashing and harassing those on benefits, and even his "progressive" policies had sinister undertones - he would increase funding to the NHS an schools, but on the condition of letting the private sector creep in and profit, and he would introduce the minimum wage, but only after consulting business owners to make sure they found it comfortably low. All the while, he was attacking and criticising the power of unions, leading to multiple disaffiliating with the party, and the others to bashfully agree not to stir up trouble for him. This was all while attacking at every opportunity the internal structures of the Labour Party to reduce its internal democracy in order to cement his (and his group, Progress's) hegemony. Labour Conferences were reduced to shams. Yet through this, even the left wing of the party mostly acquiesced, many deciding that power (even when clearly not being used to make real change) was worth the cost of your soul. During many votes, Corbyn was the lone dissenter standing up for traditional Labour principles and the working class. As counter to this, Corbyn failed to win in the 2017 and 2019 elections (the latter of which taking place after the book was published), yet managed to massively swell the ranks of the party and its voter base - increasing membership from less than 200,000 to over half a million and gaining back millions of the voters that Blair lost, even while dogged by internal divisions (the right wing of his party trying intentionally and viciously to sabotage and undermine him), attacks and slander in the press, and the looming shadow of Brexit. The book, then, highlights the great myth that the left, socialist, wing of the Party is unpopular and unelectable, and also draws attention to the fact that sadly it is the Tories and the press that are allowed to dictate the narrative of events around Labour defeats. It was true in 1983 and it's true now.

That's the rough history that the last third of the book races through. I say "races" because, sadly, the book does struggle to fully grapple with its lofty subject matter, and a detailed history wouldn't exactly fit into 250 pages. So it does feel in parts that perhaps important details are missed - the Labour Party's very reluctant relationship with Gay rights, and black and female liberation (all "loony" fringe groups that the PLP thought would cost it votes), in the 70s and 80s being just one example. But, for it faults, the book does offer a compelling narrative with which to traverse the Labour Party's history and to contextualise recent events.