The British left and the defence economy : rockets, guns and kidney machines, 1970-83

Forty years before COVID-19, socialists in Britain campaigned for workers to have the right to make ‘socially useful’ products, from hospital equipment to sustain the NHS to affordable heating systems for the impoverished elderly. This movement held one thing responsible above all else for the nation’s problems: the burden of defence spending. In the middle of the Cold War, the left put a direct challenge to the defence industry, the Labour government and trade unions. The response it received revealed much about a military-industrial state that prioritised the making and exporting of arms for political favour and profit. Looking at peace activism from the early 1970s to Labour’s landslide defeat in the 1983 general election, this book examines the conflict over the cost of Britain’s commitment to the Cold War and asserts that the wider left presented a comprehensive and implementable alternative to the stark choice between making weapons and joining the dole queue. Forty years before COVID-19, socialists in Britain campaigned for workers to have the right to make 'socially useful' products, from hospital equipment to sustain the NHS to affordable heating systems for the impoverished elderly. This movement held one thing responsible above all else for the nation's problems: the burden of defence spending. In the middle of the Cold War, the left put a direct challenge to the defence industry, the Labour government and trade unions. The response it received revealed much about a military-industrial state that prioritised the making and exporting of arms for political favour and profit. The British Left and the Defence Economy takes a fine-grained look at peace activism from the early 1970s to Labour's landslide defeat in the 1983 general election, incorporating activism, politics and the workplace to examine the conflict over the economic cost of Britain's commitment to the Cold War. Moving away from the perception that the peace movement was 'post-materialist' or above the crises of post-war deindustrialisation and unemployment, this book asserts that the wider left presented a comprehensive, detailed and implementable alternative to the stark choice between making weapons and joining the dole queue. This book will be invaluable to researchers and students studying the history and politics of post-war Britain. It challenges many widely accepted conclusions, including the 'abandonment' of social democracy and Britain's inability to 'find a role' after the loss of its empire. This account provides a glimpse at an alternative future, one based on compassionate, environmental production suited to our troubled times Front matter 1 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 12 The left and the defence economy in the early Cold War 22 Guns before butter: Labour’s defence review 52 Taking on the defence economy 80 Workers and the defence economy: the case of Lucas Aerospace 109 Post-material protest? Peace activism and the defence economy 137 The defence economy, the left and the ‘second Cold War’ 165 Epilogue 199 Bibliography 209 Index 228 This book charts the dispute over defence spending between the left and business, government and the trade unions between 1970 and 1983. Whereas the left blamed Britain’s postwar economic decline on its burdensome military commitments, successive governments used defence was a form of economic stimulus to promote jobs and sell weapons abroad. -- .