Explores the aspects of left-wing culture, activities and ideas at a time when social democracy was in crisis. This book also situates the crisis of the left in international terms as the socialist world began to collapse.

Foreword by Peter TatchellIntroduction: new histories of Labour and the left in the 1980s – Jonathan Davis and Rohan McWilliamPart I: The crisis of the Labour Party1 Retrieving or re-Imagining the past? The case of 'Old Labour', 1979–94 – Eric Shaw 2 Leading the Labour Party in the 1980s – Martin Farr 3 Labour's liberalism: gay rights and video nasties – Paul Bloomfield 4 Responsible capitalism: Labour’s industrial policy and the idea of a National Investment Bank during the long 1980s – Richard Carr Part II: The British Left in a global context5 Neil Kinnock's perestroika: Labour and the Soviet influence – Jonathan Davis 6 The international context: end of an era – John Callaghan Part III: Currents of the Wider Left7 Militant’s laboratory: Liverpool City Council's struggle with the Thatcher government – Neil Pye8 ‘Fill a Bag and Feed a Family': the miners’ strike and its supporters – Maroula Joannou 9 'Race Today cannot fail': black radicalism in the long 1980s – Robin Bunce Index

Why did the British Labour Party and the wider left fail to defeat Thatcherism in the 1980s? Has the time come to view the 1980s left in new ways? This pioneering volume is the first to explore progressive politics in the decade that profoundly shaped the way we live today.This was the era of Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, Tony Benn, the Militant Tendency, the miners’ strike, The Boys from the Blackstuff and tabloid attacks on the 'loony left'. The political failures of this period led Labour to spend the years from 1979 to 1997 in the political wilderness and forced the party to remake itself in the form of Tony Blair's New Labour. However, this volume argues that the 1980s was in fact a very creative time for the left, which championed feminism, racial equality, environmentalism and gay rights. Causes that were once associated with the counter-culture became mainstream. If the right won the economic arguments, the left helped set the social and moral agenda of the twenty-first century. Leading scholars illuminate the conflicts over ideas, leadership and political identity as neo-liberalism challenged the social democratic order. The book contains a foreword by iconic political activist Peter Tatchell, who reflects on the struggles of those years and their relevance for politics today. Labour and the Left in the 1980s will be read by all interested in modern British politics and history and by anyone concerned with the future of progressive ways of living.

‘This volume is a reappraisal of the 1980s as not a time of political failure but also ‘a creative decade for the left. Victories may have been few but there was no lack of energy’ (p. 2). It claims that if the right won the economic argument of this period, the left helped set the social and moral agenda of the twenty-first century.’Twentieth Century British History ‘An illuminating book and always a serious one, offering the reader a number of full and useful discussions.’Cercles Revue‘This book reassesses both the Labour Party and the wider left in the 1980s, suggesting that this was a more creative and exciting period than has often been assumed. … The wide-ranging chapters map out important themes in the study of Labour and the left in the 1980s, and set new agendas for research.’ — English Historical Review