{"id":658794,"date":"2025-12-28T00:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T00:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/658794\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T00:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T00:53:12","slug":"labour-must-embrace-the-spirit-of-post-war-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/658794\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour must embrace the spirit of post-war Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Work in progress on the Churchill Gardens housing estate in Pimlico, London, in 1955. Designed as part of the post-war rebuilding programme, the development integrated housing with energy infrastructure, using surplus heat from Battersea Power Station. Photo by J. A. Hampton\/Topical Press Agency\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Until recently, the fifties, sixties and seventies were viewed in sad grey hues by most in Westminster. They were decades that included disastrous experiments in statism, such as the nationalisation of British Leyland, council tenants unable to paint their front doors, dodgy British cars, dodgy British food \u2013 all culminating in rampant inflation, an IMF bailout and the \u201cwinter of discontent\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet after fifteen years of stagnant growth, a brutal housing crisis and rising social tensions, a new generation in Westminster are taking another look. What do they see?<\/p>\n

Social conservatism is dominant on the centre-right in British politics today, particularly among younger hacks and wonks; you\u2019d be hard pressed to find a Cameroon among their ranks. For them, decades of low migration, strict social mores and strong communities look increasingly attractive. They talk less about an overbearing \u201cnew Jerusalem\u201d state, more about what they see as cultural erosion since the onset of mass migration in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

YIMBYs, influential among younger politicos on right and left, also look in awe at this period. Building is the order of the day and it seems we can\u2019t do it anymore, we certainly used to. Those decades after the war delivered the world\u2019s first civil nuclear programme and an enormous network of motorways, reservoirs, and of course, housing: understandably the totemic issue for Gen Z wonks. The mass housebuilding delivered from the rubble of war has always look a remarkable achievement; our country\u2019s recent record on housing has only magnified that. This newfound love is a remarkable turnaround, particularly for the right.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Treat yourself or a friend this Christmas to a New Statesman subscription for just \u00a32 <\/p>\n

Yet many YIMBYs still struggle to consciously decouple from the economic model that destroyed everything they admire about the post-war years. Thatcherism encouraged rampant consumerism, eroding established social norms, and hammered the trade unions, who supported strong, stable communities. It opened our economy up to the highest international bidder, turning us into what Angus Hanton has called a \u2018vassal state\u2019 for foreign corporate interests, particularly America. Yet most cultural conservatives remain wedded to tax cuts, markets and free trade. The Conservative Party has moved enormously on questions of culture and identity. But it cannot escape its free market past. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly, too many YIMBYs fail to recognise that the impressive building of the post-war years was underpinned by more state, not less. Yet reductions to the state, particularly deregulation, is often the YIMBY\u2019s proposed medicine. We haven\u2019t built enough recently primarily because of privatisation; it is no coincidence that water in England was privatised in 1989, around the time we last built a reservoir here.<\/p>\n

So, we see a paradox emerging, which might explain some of the stasis in British politics today. Cultural conservatives and YIMBYs, who set much of Westminster\u2019s agenda today, increasingly admire the decades after the war. Yet they can\u2019t embrace the conclusions of their own logic because they can\u2019t break up with neoliberalism. One exception to this might the Future of the Left project, convened by Blue Labour thinker Jonathan Rutherford. This combines social conservatism with a desire to get building again, while not being wedded to economic orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

Inspired by the work of David Edgerton, Blue Labourites are increasingly focused on the need for a nationalist political economy. As described by Edgerton\u2019s remarkable and widely read The Rise and Fall of the British Nation, the post-war decades were more about nationalism than statism, despite typical historical narratives. Starmer\u2019s Labour has at times channelled this spirit. In Opposition, Reeves flirted with post-war protectionism, calling for a new era of \u201cBuy British\u201d. In office, Starmer has talked of rebuilding Britain as Attlee did after the war. But much of Labour\u2019s revisionism has been awfully slow.<\/p>\n

For some in the party, the seventies were a tragedy brought about by \u201cold Labour\u201d, which should be put in a sealed tomb along with the far left. Instead, they look to the year 2000 as their lodestar; peak civilisation is the Millennium Dome and Cool Britannia, not the years after the war. Yet, as the government has found out, the world underpinning 2000 has gone. Instead, the hand our leaders have been dealt look remarkably like those facing us after the Second World War.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Britain is outside the European Union, as it was for much of the post-war period, having to fend for itself again. Domestic production is increasingly important, as empty shelves and sky-high energy prices have reminded us all. Industrial strategy is back in fashion \u2013 something until recently decried as terribly old fashioned. We live in an era of trade wars and tariffs; globalisation has slowed. Great powers are once again our biggest threat, not the \u201cnon-state actors\u201d that concerned foreign policy makers in the nineties and noughties.<\/p>\n

While history hasn\u2019t ended, the era that started with the Berlin Wall\u2019s fall certainly has. Until Labour realises this, it will stay chasing shadows. The good news is that it shouldn\u2019t be hard to re-embrace the post-war years: a time of two great Labour governments, a time when the party dominated the battle for the soul of the nation, whether in or out of office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[Further reading: Why is Keir Starmer so unpopular?<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

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