The centenary of the General Strike has elicited several books and articles in recent weeks. This event, unique in British history, lasted just nine days but continues to pose important questions. For some on the left this is the case of what ‘might have been’ if the miners had not been left in the lurch by the TUC. Yet syndicalism, the ideology of workers’ control that inspired many British revolutionaries in the years before and after the First World War, was already in decline and the strike was relatively peaceful. In fact, most of the belligerent ideological class politics came from Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who launched another ‘Red Scare’ in the pages of The British Gazette as he piled pressure on John Reith, the BBC’s General Manager, to condemn the strike as unconstitutional.
Instead, what the TUC called a ‘national strike’ should be remembered for the solidarity and capacity for self-organisation among workers in towns and cities all over Britain as they struck in support of fair treatment for the miners. In this defeat there was a demonstration not of a revolutionary ideology but of a working-class ethos that had earlier been evident in Chartism and would later sustain the miners’ strike of 1984-85. That ethos grew out of a refusal to be crushed by a privileged elite and was more tangible than vacuous statements about ‘values’ from today’s Labour leaders. It was nonconformist in spirit, unimpressed by orthodoxies, and suspicious of career politicians who put their interests above those they sought to represent. It exuded a robust sense of independence. Yet there was strong loyalty to the labour movement – including, for long spells, to its leadership – as well as a belief in mutual improvement derived from friendly societies, co-operation and adult education.
That ethos was rooted in the industrial heartlands but – as a recent Common Wealth study found – aspects of it survive in the post-industrial UK: for example, in scepticism towards Britain’s political class, in the grievances over unfair treatment of care workers, nurses and retail and hospitality staff, and in the view that if high streets and communities are to prosper then public investment is needed to counter exploitative private landlords. If Andy Burnham is serious about taking the ‘Battle for the Soul of the Labour Party’ to Makerfield then it will be won not on ideology but on reconnecting with its ethos.