Labours old and new : ideological, political and organisational fragmentation on the parliamentary right of the British Labour Party, 1970-79.

摘要

This thesis explores the complexity, divisions and eventual fragmentation of theudparliamentary right of the British Labour Party in the late 1960s and 1 970s, and itsudimplications for Labour's intra-party politics. It argues that the Labour right in thisudperiod, in contrast to the Labour left, has been comparatively under-researched. Itudfurther stresses that the detail of inherent complexity and divisions on theudparliamentary Labour right was previously concealed within broad agreement aroundudan adhesive framework of Keynesian social democracy and the basic principles ofud'1950s revisionism'. As the core pillars of this adhesive ideological and politicaludframework collapsed in the particular economic and political context of the late 1960sudand 1970s, the complexity and divisions of the parliamentary Labour right were madeudexplicit. Attempts at intra-party organisation on the parliamentary Labour right in theud1970s further reveal its ideological and political fragmentation. The nature anduddevelopment of this endeavour served only to emphasise the depth of ideological,udpolicy and political divisions on the Labour right, to marginalise an influentialudsegment of Labour right thought and practice, and to indicate the possibility of aud(future) split with the Labour Party. The study adopts case studies of four criticaludpolicy themes to demonstrate the emergence of these divisions from the late 1960sudonwards: European membership, industrial relations and trade union reform, issues ofudpublic expenditure and attitudes to race and immigration policy. The study concludesudthat ideological and political divisions and fragmentation severely undermined theudcohesion and unity of the parliamentary Labour right. In the circumstances, theudLabour right was unable to mount a credible coherent intellectual or institutionaludchallenge to the Labour left, and the seeds of secessionist activity on the Labour rightudwere sown long before Labour's introspective 1979-81 period. Given recent debatesudconcerning the nature and relative novelty or otherwise of New Labour, a postscriptudargues that one important consequence of the failure to reconcile the complexity andudfragmentation of the 'old' Labour right has been an inability to conceive of significantudparallels and continuities between elements of this coalition and New Labour.