“Belonging: The Truth Behind the Headlines” – in Blackburn Library Tickets, Wed 14 Sep 2022 at 18:30 | Eventbrite A free community screening. Doors open 6.30pm. Film at 7.00pm.
“The Parliament which granted the franchise to a large proportion of the British working class in 1867 did so with a singular lack of enthusiasm. In the final debates on the Second Reform Bill the great majority of speakers expressed either apprehension or outright alarm” (“Angels in Marble” – McKenzie/Silver (1968). Giving working-class people the vote would, it was feared, tempt them to pass “laws with respect to taxation and property especially favourable to them, and therefore dangerous to all other classes” (Lord Salisbury). Karl Marx had written in the “New York Daily Tribune” in 1852 that “The carrying of universal suffrage in England would…be a far more socialistic message than anything which has been honoured by that name on the Continent. Its inevitable result, here, is the political supremacy of the working class”.
Yet, more than 150 years on, neither the fears nor the hopes can be said to have become wholly true. It is now, no doubt, more necessary than in the early nineteenth century for the British Parliament to take account of working-class concerns, and there has been a gradual overall increase in social provisions. But Britain has remained a largely conservative country, both in the temperament of its people and in terms of the recurring electoral success of the Conservative Party.
Many explanations have been advanced for this. One must surely be the Conservatives’ skill in pulling together an ideological package which was perhaps best encapsulated in the “Primrose League” but whose main components are still active today; the idea that it is Conservatives who are the persons best qualified to manage government, that they are business-like, competent and insulated against profligacy, that it is necessary to be patriotic on their terms and to feel a deep admiration for the monarchy and the armed forces as bulwarks of stability, security and order.
British society has, however, also shown itself to retain a capacity to be biased against working-class interests in an ongoing, pragmatic, task-based way. In his book on “The Tory Tradition” Sir Geoffrey Butler argued that any society needed a “governing class” that had enjoyed “specialised preparatory training”. He saw this as being provided by the upper-class home and the “public” schools. These two essentials – family background and private education – continue to wield their influence to this day. Members of the new cabinet are over nine times more likely to have gone to an independent school than the general population. 68% were educated at fee-paying schools, while 19% went to a comprehensive and 10% attended a grammar school.
What is perhaps now even more apparent is that a common production line, instilling a sense of shared attitudes and supporting a shared network, places individuals not just into positions of political power but also into positions of economic and cultural influence.
Firmly rooted in Britain’s inequality and concentrations of wealth and property, the “governing class” builds on these foundations, as Owen Jones put it: “….financial links and a “revolving door”: that is, powerful individuals gliding between the political, corporate and media worlds – or who manage to inhabit these various worlds at the same time. The terms of political debate are, in large part, dictated by a media controlled by a small number of exceptionally rich owners, while thinktanks and political parties are funded by wealthy individuals and corporate interests. Many politicians are on the payroll of private businesses; along with civil servants, they end up working for companies interested in their policy areas, allowing them to profit from their public service – something that gives them a vested interest in an ideology that furthers corporate interests. The business world benefits from the politicians’ and civil servants’ contacts, as well as an understanding of government structures and experience, allowing private firms to navigate their way to the very heart of power”.
What this all boils down to is that there is no need for some sort of conspiratorial cabal for political social and economic control to go on, as it were, “behind the scenes”. It is more a question simply of how things work, when individuals with this common schooling and common assumptions populate different spheres of influence.
For all its ubiquity and wide reach, it is rare for us to witness this “governing class” in action. If the publicity for “Belonging” is accurate, it is a film that gives us a rare chance to see these mechanisms of power in Britain – the “who has it, and what they do with it” – as they engage to influence and determine the outcome of three specific industrial situations; the News International (“Wapping”) events of 1986/7, the preparation of Royal Mail for its privatisation in 2007/08, and the 2013 dispute at The Grangemouth Oil Refinery in Scotland.
We think that this is information that Trade Unionists ought to have access to and understand. We are hosting a free community screening of the film on Wednesday 14th September at 7.00pm in Blackburn Library – “Belonging: The Truth Behind the Headlines” – in Blackburn Library Tickets, Wed 14 Sep 2022 at 18:30 | Eventbrite – as part of our effort to convince Trade Union colleagues of the need to sustain organisational structures, such as our own, that are the necessary counter-weight. The solidarity of the governing class contrasts with our own lack of care in being content to focus only on what goes on within our own industry, workplace, or branch.
Do register through the link above for free admission to this event.