This book uses a biographical approach to explore the Labour Party's relationship with European integration, moving beyond simple 'pro' or 'anti' labels to showcase the complexity of views that have existed.Its positioning within the 'biographical turn' emphasizes the importance of formative experiences in shaping such viewpoints - held by both familiar figures and more underappreciated voices. Taking a broad view of Labour history, the book covers the roots of Labour’s diverse thi...

Over Britain's first century of mass democracy, politics lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this history of broken consensus and political agony illuminate our current age of upheaval? Historians usually focus on the dawn of a new consensus--postwar Keynesianism, or Thatcherite neoliberalism. Yet journalist Phil Tinline argues that we should be more interested in the periods of turmoil and misery in between. How did the Great Depression's specters of fascism, bombing and mass unemploy...

This year marks the centenary of Harold Wilson's birth, the fiftieth anniversary of his most impressive general election victory and forty years since his dramatic resignation as Prime Minister. He was one of the longest-serving premiers of the twentieth century, having won a staggering four general elections, yet, despite this monumental record, his place in Labour's history remains somewhat ambiguous.By the end of his two periods in power, both the left and right of the party were...

On 5 June 1975, voters went to the polls in Britain's first national referendum to decide whether the UK should remain in the European Community. As in 2016, the campaign shattered old political allegiances and triggered a far-reaching debate on Britain's place in the world. The campaign to stay in stretched from the Conservative Party - under its new leader, Margaret Thatcher - to the Labour government, the farming unions and the Confederation of British Industry. Those fighting to 'Get B...

Britain’s first Labour government took office on 22 January 1924. Its centenary provides an opportunity to reassess the party's performance over the last 100 years, and with an election pending, the character and purpose of the modern party.Labour defined the dominant political settlement of much of the Twentieth Century: the welfare state. It has achieved much in pursuit of material change, social reform and equality. It has challenged patriarchy, racism and the legacy of imperial...

This history of Britain since 1945 confronts two themes that have dominated British consciousness during the post-war era: the myth of decline and the pervasiveness of American influence. The political narrative is about the struggle to maintain a power that was illusory and, from 1960 on, to reverse an economic decline that was nearly as illusory. The British economy had its problems, which are fully analyzed; however, they were counterbalanced by an unparalleled prosperity. At the same t...

*A Guardian Book of the Day*The defeat of socialist firebrand Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2019 confirmed Tony Benn’s famous retort 'the Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it.'For over a hundred years, the British Labour Party has been a bastion for working class organisation and struggle. However, has it ever truly been on the side of the workers? Where do its interests really lie? And can we rely on i...

The People's Peace: Britain since 1945 is the first comprehensive study by a professional historian of British history from 1945 to the present day. It examines the transformation of post-war Britain from the planning enthusiasm of 1945 to the rise of New Labour. Its themes include the troubles of the British economy; public criticism of the legitimacy of the state and its instruments of authority; the co-existence of growing personal prosperity with widespread social inequality; ...

A study of six prominent postwar politicians in the United Kingdom.Making the Weather is the story of six postwar politicians, all of whom exerted an outsized influence on the political life of the United Kingdom—an influence greater than that of most prime ministers. Vernon Bogdanor’s cast includes three from the political Left—Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, Roy Jenkins, and Tony Benn—and three from the Right—Enoch Powell, Keith Joseph, and Nigel Farage. Each study...

As the party that championed trade union rights, the creation of the NHS and the establishment of a national minimum wage, Labour has played a crucial role in the shaping of British society. And yet the leaders who have stood at its helm – from Keir Hardie to Sir Keir Starmer, via Clement Attlee, Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn – have steered the party vessel with enormously varying degrees of success.The requirements, techniques and goals of the Labour leadership since the party's in...

In November 1980, James Callaghan retired as leader of the Labour Party. He had been on the front line of British politics for many years and was the only person to hold all of the four great offices of state. However, his premiership is seen as a failure, the last gasp of Keynesian social democracy being smothered by the oncoming advent of Thatcherism. This book offers a timely reappraisal of Jim Callaghan's premiership and time as Leader of the Opposition in 1979–80.

The slow collapse of the European colonial empires after 1945 provides one of the great turning points of twentieth century history. With the loss of India however, the British under Harold Macmillan attempted to enforce a 'second' colonial occupation - supporting the efforts of Sir Andrew Cohen of the Colonial Office to create a Central African Federation. Drawing on newly released archival material, The Politics and Economics of Decolonization offers a fresh examination of Britain's cent...