A Sealed Tomb: The Labour Left's 'Wilderness Years', 1988-2015

密封的坟墓：工党左翼的“荒野岁月”，1988-2015

• 批准号: 2438815
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2438815
• 关键词: Sealed; Tomb; Labour; Left; Wilderness

While focused studies and broader histories of the Labour Left have focused on the zenith of the Left's power in the early 1980s, its later fragmentation and marginalisation has yet to be fully explored beyond the most highly partisan of accounts, often ignored completely in favour of narrative histories of gradual "modernisation". In particular, this latter interpretation has shaped both the popular memory of the Labour Party, and much of Labour's historiography. This DPhil will aim to redress this conspicuous gap in the literature to fully explore Labour Left's so-called "wilderness years" of political and organisational isolation from 1988 to 2015. While this will aid growing interest in understanding the "origins" of figures such as Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Left in this period is significant in its own right as a study of changing strategies and ideas within a marginalised political movement. While subjected to a culture of political and organisational isolation, evidence suggests the "wilderness years" was more than a period of political hibernation. While isolated both from media attention and the leadership, the Labour Left remained a dynamic and often innovative intellectual and activist force, which continued to develop and change along with the party's internal dynamics, and the wider context of modern Britain. My research will aim to examine this activity, and how the Labour Left was not only able to survive as a small political network, but also achieve some key moments of successful resistance. This study will also explore the Left's relation not only to the leadership and government, but even the party itself, in particular the frequent debates over whether the Left could continue within Labour or outside of it through a new Socialist Party. Meanwhile, areas of ideological innovation will not only concern the high-political issues of the state but also concerns of personal identity such as gender and race, and trans-national solidarities as well as the construction of local networks at regional, town, or constituency-level. A focus on the role of "space" and local solidarities will prove particularly illustrative on how key political actors and organisations remained active during this period and help to contribute to a recently growing area of scholarly interest in modern British history. The role of the Socialist Campaign Group will act as an illustrative case study of how marginalised MPs organised themselves, alongside the ideological and campaigning work of other internal and external left-wing groups such as the Grassroots Alliance and Compass. Such studies will not only provide a rich insight into the changing strategies of the respective groups through diverse written sources, but also illuminate how networks of solidarity were formed with often disparate political groups. Understanding both how these groups organised and campaigned as well as how they perceived their own political strategies and goals will also prove illuminating in analysing how the later Labour Left drew on past experiences as well as pre-existing ideas, networks and strategies. My research will draw both on the personal accounts, diaries and memoirs of the period along with extensive archival research, particularly NEC minutes, the archives of key individuals such as Neil Kinnock and Bernie Grant, along with research into the results of internal elections and votes, which I believe will prove illuminating of the party's changing internal-dynamics. I aim to supplement this with oral history interviews with prominent figures of the Left from the period, including Mark Seddon, Neal Lawson, Jon Cruddas and Liz Davies. An examination of these hitherto unexplored and potentially more candid personal perspective of the period offer an unrivalled understanding of the modern British Left, as well as an exploration of the importance of memory in shaping understandings of Labour's frequently contested history.

虽然对工党左派的集中研究和更广泛的历史都集中在 20 世纪 80 年代初左派权力的顶峰，但其后来的分裂和边缘化尚未得到充分探索，除了最高度党派的叙述之外，常常被完全忽视以支持叙事逐渐“现代化”的历史。特别是，后一种解释塑造了工党的大众记忆以及工党的大部分史学。该博士学位旨在弥补文献中的这一明显空白，以充分探索 1988 年至 2015 年间工党左翼所谓的政治和组织孤立的“荒野岁月”。杰里米·科尔宾（Jeremy Corbyn），这一时期的工党左派本身就具有重要意义，因为它是对边缘化政治运动中不断变化的策略和思想的研究。尽管受到政治和组织孤立文化的影响，但有证据表明，“荒野岁月”不仅仅是政治冬眠期。尽管远离媒体关注和领导层，工党左派仍然是一支充满活力且经常创新的知识分子和活动力量，它随着党的内部动态和现代英国的更广泛背景而不断发展和变化。我的研究旨在考察这一活动，以及工党左派如何不仅能够作为一个小型政治网络生存下来，而且还能够实现成功抵抗的一些关键时刻。这项研究还将探讨左派不仅与领导层和政府的关系，甚至与政党本身的关系，特别是关于左派是否可以在工党内部或通过新的社会党在工党之外继续存在的频繁争论。同时，意识形态创新领域不仅涉及国家的高度政治问题，还涉及性别、种族等个人身份、跨国团结以及地区、城镇或选区的本地网络建设。 -等级。对“空间”和地方团结的作用的关注将特别说明关键的政治行为者和组织如何在这一时期保持活跃，并有助于为最近日益增长的现代英国历史学术兴趣领域做出贡献。社会主义运动小组的作用将作为边缘化议员如何组织自己的说明性案例研究，以及草根联盟和指南针等其他内部和外部左翼团体的意识形态和竞选工作。此类研究不仅可以通过不同的书面资料对各个群体不断变化的策略提供丰富的见解，而且还可以阐明如何与不同的政治群体形成团结网络。了解这些团体如何组织和竞选，以及他们如何看待自己的政治战略和目标，也将有助于分析后来的工党左翼如何利用过去的经验以及预先存在的想法、网络和战略。我的研究将利用这一时期的个人账目、日记和回忆录，以及广泛的档案研究，特别是国家选举委员会会议记录、尼尔·金诺克和伯尼·格兰特等关键人物的档案，以及对内部选举和投票结果的研究，我相信这将阐明党内部动态的变化。我的目的是通过对这一时期左派杰出人物的口述历史采访来补充这一点，其中包括马克·塞登、尼尔·劳森、乔恩·克鲁达斯和利兹·戴维斯。对这一时期迄今为止尚未探索过的、可能更为坦诚的个人观点的审视，提供了对现代英国左派无与伦比的理解，并探索了记忆在塑造对工党经常受到争议的历史的理解方面的重要性。