Groucho Marxism

The Labour council in Liverpool was elected in 1983 against a backdrop of decline that had been going on for 20 years. Beginning in the 1960s, containerisation destroyed thousands of jobs on the docks, up until then Liverpool’s biggest employer. The city’s population then collapsed, from over 700,000 in 1960 to under 500,000 in 1980. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government introduced massive cuts across the public sector. Surprisingly given this backdrop, the Liberals took control of Liverpool council in 1990 with the support of a few Tories. The reason for this victory lay in the fact that Liverpool’s working class had experienced previous Labour administrations being elected on radical manifestos that subsequently failed to deliver, which led to apathy and disillusionment.

When Labour re-took control of the council in 1983 it was still a workers’ party, but with a pro-capitalist leadership. At that time, there were few expectations that this Labour administration would be any different from the others; but this pessimism was short-lived. Instead of more redundancies, every department saw increased funding based on its needs. Planned maintenance allowed whole estates in areas that had been neglected for years to be modernised in one fell swoop, providing improvements such as new roofs, windows, bathroom extensions, and central heating. The council also began to deliver on its main manifesto pledge to address the city’s housing crisis, clear slums, and build new council houses.

The councillors were met with resistance from a senior layer of council management. But they were ready and told the directors in no uncertain terms they must follow instructions or resign. At this point the capitalist class started to take note and began a media-led campaign of vilification against the council. However, although the media’s biased coverage did result in an increased vote for the Liberals and Tories in the 1984 local elections, this was buried under an avalanche of working-class votes for Labour. The victory was a shock to the establishment and the following month the Tories sent their environment minister Sir Patrick Jenkins to the city to try to bring the council into line. This backfired when Jenkins reported at a press conference that he was appalled by the slums he had witnessed.

The Tories, who were fighting on two fronts with the 1984-85 miners’ strike still raging, were forced to retreat and released £30 million of funding (equivalent  to £120 million in today’s money). Unfortunately for the Tories the council was well drilled, with experienced organizers in leading positions. As a result, not a single council worker was made redundant during this period. Eventually, with the Tories still refusing to provide the additional funding needed, the  council went outside normal borrowing procedures and took out loans directly from banks. The rental income on new homes would pay for the loans, and the improved conditions would reduce costs on other services dealing with the social problems that arise in slum areas.

Around this time there were many public meetings, union meetings, and rallies in the city. These  meetings were often hundreds-strong and included scores of delegates from the trade unions in workplaces from across Liverpool, taking part in intense and often heated debate. However there were no elections in Liverpool in 1985, which was unfortunate as it would have shown that support for the council was still strong. At the Labour Party conference that year, Labour leader Neil Kinnock lambasted the whole campaign; his treacherous speech revealed him to be an agent of the ruling class and was a threat to other Labour councils not to join the rebellion. In 1986, Kinnock followed up on his threat, orchestrating a witch-hunt of the left.

The workers’ movement in Liverpool only came to an end in 1987 when the Labour councillors were removed undemocratically by Kinnock and Thatcher. The councillors were also given £350,000 fines; this money was raised by working-class supporters with a huge surplus of tens of thousands of pounds. Even after these attacks, the council took a leading role in defeating Thatcher’s hated Poll Tax, spearheading a campaign that resulted in millions refusing to pay and Thatcher being forced out of office. Along with defeating the poll tax, the lasting legacy of the Liverpool council is the 5,000 council houses that were built to replace the slums, which are now well-established estates among the most popular places to live in the city.

There are many lessons we can draw from this episode in Britain’s recent political history. The first is that it is perfectly possible for a genuinely left-wing administration to take control of a British council. The second is that having taken control, there is no need to enact cuts, even if they are mandated by central government. The third is that people who seem apathetic and disillusioned with politics can become re-engaged given the right set of circumstances. The fourth is that the capitalist class will give up any pretence of championing democracy as soon as doing so becomes inimical to their interests. And the final lesson is that the leadership of the Labour party has been acting against the interests of working people for many decades now. The end of this rotten party cannot come soon enough.