Thatcherite Project Research Articles

Brexit as Britain in Decline and its Crises (Revisited)

AbstractThis article revisits Andrew Gamble's book, Britain in Decline, and also revisits the geographies of state crisis. Drawing on the substantial archives of state theory, the article explores how Brexit emerged as a moment of crisis following the relative decline of the economy and the reshaping of the welfare state. Discussions of Brexit and the uneven geographies of advanced capitalism inevitably raise questions about the central tension between the free market and strong state within both political discourse and political activity. In considering these, the article extends Gamble's writing on the social, economic and political struggles within the Thatcherite project and explores the role of uneven development in perpetuating and transforming the contradictions of advanced capitalism. This allows for a more geographical reading of contradictions inside the state‐territory, which augments Gamble's understanding of the external challenges to Britain's postwar settlement.

“Breaking New Ground”: The National Enterprise Board, Ferranti, and Britain’s Prehistory of Privatization

Privatization is closely associated with the ideological turn to neoliberalism and regarded as a cornerstone of Britain’s “Thatcherite project.” Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government did not undertake its major privatizations of state-owned businesses until its second term began in 1983. We argue in this article, however, that the 1980 disposal by the National Enterprise Board of its controlling interest in the engineering and electronics company Ferranti offers significant insights into the development of privatization policy and practice, as well as the changing role of the state in British business. This disposal reflected the early caution of some of the Thatcher government’s actions but contributed to fulfillment of an electoral commitment and provided valuable privatization experience in addressing difficult financial, industrial, and political issues.

Energy Supply and Decarbonisation Beyond Brexit: Politics and Policy

Energy Supply and Decarbonisation Beyond Brexit: Politics and Policy

King Caz: Cazenove, Thatcherism, and the 1980s financial revolution.

This article shows how elite stockbrokers Cazenove and Co. responded to the 'Big Bang' deregulation of the financial sector in 1986, using social networks and inherited practices to navigate an ostensibly technical and modernizing revolution. The Thatcher administration's reform of the London Stock Exchange was an economic enterprise intended to end restrictive practices and open the City to competition. A more open meritocratic financial sector marked the 'death of gentlemanly capitalism' and coalesced with a political agenda for entrepreneurialism and popular capitalism. Yet this case study shows how Cazenove's culture drove its strategy, that privilege and hierarchy were sustained by influential cross-sector networks, and that there was resistance to change, even though technological change and new financial instruments were embraced as part of a strategy which mixed innovation with tradition. Essentially, elite networks persisted in the 1980s deregulated economy, as established relationships were used to optimum effect and became more important after Big Bang. A more mutually supportive relationship between finance and industry than has hitherto been imagined is also demonstrated. By showing how a modernizing revolution was navigated using social networks and traditions, this article restores the role of culture to financial history. It also contributes to a body of work in twentieth-century British history which challenges the perception that neoliberal ideas were consistently applied under Thatcherism and complicates the notion of a coherent Thatcherite project.

Fundamentals at stake: the Conservatives, industrial relations and the rhetorical framing of the miners’ strike in 1984/1985

The importance of the Thatcher government’s success in the miners’ strike of 1984/1985 for the further course of industrial relations politics has often been underlined. This article argues that it was equally important for the ideological development of Conservatism: it was essential for the strengthening of Thatcherism as a particular strand of Conservative thought, culture and practice within the party and the wider realm of political culture. The miners’ strike was a keystone in the long-term Thatcherite project of shaping the political language employed in public discourse and hence in defining the categories in which people would conceive of the political world. By evoking ideas about the nation, society, the cold war and democracy Conservatives contextualised the miners’ strike and established a Conservative narrative of the events. The political language of Thatcherism was strengthened and popularised during the year of strike action. Here lies the lasting legacy of the miners’ strike.

The Organic Crisis of the British State: Putting Brexit in its Place

The Brexit vote was a singular event that is one symptom of a continuing organic crisis of the British state and society and a stimulus for further struggles over the future of the United Kingdom and its place in Europe and the wider world. This crisis previously enabled the rise of Thatcherism as a neoliberal and neoconservative project (with New Labour as its left wing) with an authoritarian populist appeal and authoritarian statist tendencies that persisted under the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition (2010–2015). The 2015 election of a Conservative Government, which aimed to revive the Thatcherite project and entrench austerity, was the immediate context for the tragi-comedy of errors played out in the referendum. The ensuing politics and policy issues could promote the disintegration of the UK and, perhaps, the EU without delivering greater political sovereignty or a more secure and non-balkanized place for British economic space in the world market.

Margaret Thatcher and Thatcherism: Dead but not buried

The article divides the history of Thatcherism into seven main stages from its pre-history before 1979 through to the revival of the neoliberal project by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition of 2010–2015. This periodization is based on the changing strategic line of Thatcherism and is related not only to Mrs Thatcher’s practice of conviction politics as a political leader but also to the defining features of neoliberalism considered as an economic and political project. The analysis then reviews the features of the neoliberal regime shift instituted under Mrs Thatcher once it had been consolidated, including the strengthening of the City of London and a finance-dominated accumulation trajectory at the expense of uneven development elsewhere in the United Kingdom and, eventually, the financial crisis that undermined the New Labour Government in 2007–10. This crisis was the pretext for the previously noted revival of the Thatcherite project. The article then considers the dialectic of authoritarian populism and statism and ends with brief remarks on how the recent and continuing fisco-financial crisis has provided an opportunity for the revival of a ‘two nations’ neoliberal austerity politics.

Losing the peace: Euroscepticism and the foundations of contemporary English nationalism

ABSTRACT. Political resistance to European integration in the UK laid important ideological foundations for contemporary English nationalism. The politics surrounding accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) was such that it signalled that accession was a matter of supreme national importance and, via the device of a referendum, it led to the fusing of parliamentary and popular sovereignty. The unfolding of the Thatcherite project in Britain added an individualistic – and eventually an anti-European – dimension to this nascent English nationalism. Resistance to the deepening political and monetary integration of Europe, coupled with the effects of devolution in the UK, led to the emergence of a populist English nationalism, by now fundamentally shaped by opposition to European integration, albeit a nationalism that merged the defence of British and English sovereignty. Underpinning these three developments was a popular version of the past that saw ‘Europe’ as the ultimate institutional expression of British decline. Thus Euroscepeticism generated the ideology of contemporary English nationalism by legitimising the defence of parliamentary sovereignty through the invocation of popular sovereignty underpinned by reference to the past.

Acid house and Thatcherism: Contesting spaces in late 1980s Britain

From 1987 to 1990, hundreds of Acid House parties were held across Britain. These parties became the subject of an intense moral panic. The scale of the measures taken against these parties can be understood in terms of the disruptive presence they presented to Thatcherism—the hegemonic project built around Margaret Thatcher's leadership of the Conservative Party. The successive Thatcher governments held jurisdiction over the territory of the UK and it was over this national space that Thatcherism attempted to assert its hegemony. This paper analyses the way in which the disruption presented by Acid House to the organisation of spaces within contemporary Britain contributed to the threat it was perceived as presenting to the Thatcherite project.

Urban Narratives: Contesting Place and Space in Some British Cinema from the 1980s

The 1980s saw screening of a number of important films exploring what Peter Wollen described as Thatcherisation of London.l One consequence of politics of Thatcherism dominant during this was renewed hegemony of finance capital in British economy, further accentuating prominence of nation's capital as a site of influence and power. Historically a place of fascination to writers and artists depicting urban life, London became a focal point again for film-makers who voice a sense of outrage or protest directed at Thatcherite project as a whole. Thus the practice of film-making in 1980s both grew out of, and responded to, social, economic and cultural circumstances characteristic of period (Hill xi). This essay looks at some of these films, in particular at work of Mike Leigh, Hanif Kureishi, and Ken Loach. I will show how these writers and directors use film to document

Racism and Reform: new ethnicities/old inequalities?

AbstractRacism lies at the heart of the Thatcherite project. This article explores how issues of ‘race’, racism and ethnicity are positioned within the education reforms that have reshaped the British schooling system. Education policy has adopted a largely deracialised discourse such that a concern with ethnic inequalities of achievement and opportunity has been effectively removed from the policy agenda. Simultaneously, most reforms have had a particular (usually negative) impact upon children of minority ethnic background. The article explores the development of this strand of education policy and exposes the new racist constructions of ‘the nation’ and its ‘common culture’ that find expression through the marketisation of schooling and a willed ignorance about the extent and nature of racism within the system.

Situating Vocationalism

The approaches taken to the analysis of vocationalism within the sociology of education have been dominated by the concept of the New Right and have operated within a dominant strong‐state/free market paradigm based upon an analysis of the Thatcherite project. I argue that vocationalist ideologies should be more properly linked to an emerging ‘statist’ model of capitalism in which the state intervenes to create the conditions for greater international competitiveness. However neither this, nor other legitimations of vocationalism in terms of its supposed Jit’ with a new post‐fordist economy, can be seen to cany complete conviction.

The Regional Impact of Thatcherism: Attitudes and Votes in Great Britain in the 1980s

JOHNSTON R. J. and PATTIE C. J. (1990) The regional impact of Thatcherism: attitudes and votes in Great Britain in the 1980s, Reg. Studies 24, 479–493. The ideology of the Conservative governments of Great Britain in the 1980s—frequently referred to as Thatcherism—has been the focus of much debate in recent years. Analyses of surveys taken after the 1983 and 1987 general elections provide clear occupational class and regional differences in the degree to which British voters have accepted various aspects of the Thatcherite project. The results provide clear evidence of an enduring north:south divide in British politics during the 1980s. JOHNSTON R. J. et PATTIE C. J. (1990) L'impact regional de la politique Thatcher: attitudes et votes en Grande-Bretagne aux annees '80, Reg. Studies 24, 479–493. L'ideologie des gouvernements conservateurs en Grande-Bretagne aux annees '80—souvent appelee la politique Thatcher—a suscite beaucoup de discussion au cours des dernieres annees. A partir des analyses des enquete...

Race and the Education Reform Act

The abandonment of a commitment to the achievement of social democratic consensus in the Thatcherite project and the emphasis on individualism and the market means that a new source of cultural hegemony has to be sought. It is being attempted by the inculcation of a particular form of nationalism using the family and schools as a vehicle. The exact parameters of what constitutes “Britishness” are achieved by the marginalization of groups and movements that threaten the particular Thatcherite model of the nation and the imposition of a limited, and racist, model of culture. Within education a struggle is developing over content as the government seeks to impose a National Curriculum that reflects its ideology while structural changes hasten the commodification of education. Both the curriculum and structural changes are likely to have a detrimental effect on black and working-class pupils.

The Thatcherite project in education: the case of the City Technology Colleges

Despite the broad coherence of the Thatcherite Project, it contains a central contradiction of which the CTCs are emblematic. The contradiction is described as 'conservative modernisation' - associated with economic liberalisation and social controle Examing the CTCs under four headings: choice, selection, control and content it is concluded that they have failed, in their aim to attract private funding, are unpopular with almost all educational forces outside govemment, and offer very little that is different from current secondary education.

The Westland affair: Collision over the future of British capitalism

The debate over the Westland affair has gone through many phases over the past few months. Yet little or no clarity has been achieved about the underlying pressures and political connections which produced it. Henk Overbeek takes a step back from the popular imagery of the affair and looks at what the affair can tell us about the interlinkages between defence policy and the wider socio-economic context which underlies the Thatcherite project. Far from being a mere takeover battle, he argues, it represents a deep question about the present and future direction of British politics.