Change From Below

Running through the whole anthology is Benn’s unshakeable belief in democratic progress coming from pressure from below, instead of being handed down from upon high. The anthology includes “The Politician Today,” a speech he made to an international conference of political consultants in 1970, in which he powerfully articulates this conviction:

Looking back over a hundred years of British parliamentary democracy and seeing why great changes occur, I have become convinced that these were not the products of enlightened leaders but of the pressure of people from below, who have worked through the agency of political leaders, whose greatest quality may well have been their realism. We would never have had the vote in Britain for men — and certainly not for women — if it had not been demanded and conceded. We should never have had state education, the welfare state, the National Health Service or many of the other civilised developments of which we are proud if the demands of these things had not bubbled up from below. And the present vigorous campaigns against pollution, for a better quality of life and for a greater respect for ecology, were not thought up by inspired ministers or far-sighted civil servants. They came from the people and we are now conceding what they want.

Throughout the book, it is clear how this fundamental belief informed Benn’s proposed reforms to the political process, the economy, and the workplace and his vision of a more democratic international system for peace and cooperation. It also demonstrates how his ideas were shaped by his reading of British history, from the Levellers and Diggers to the Chartists, Suffragettes, and movements of the early twenty-first century, as an ongoing struggle for democratic control for the many in place of an undemocratic hoarding of power and wealth by a privileged few.

Benn said that experience is the greatest teacher. This anthology shows how his own political views were formed, and his own leftward political journey significantly shaped, by his experience of listening to and learning from constituents, trade unionists in struggle, campaigning students, and marginalized and discriminated-against groups. His belief was that real progress comes in Parliament when sufficient MPs feel the pressure to do the same kind of learning and act upon it.

For a Socialist Economic Alternative and a World of Peace

The “Industry” section includes “A Ten-Year Industrial Strategy for Britain,” written in 1975 by Tony Benn, Frances Morrell, and Francis Cripps, which became known as the Alternative Economic Strategy. While the then Labour government sadly followed the neoliberal prescription of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for dealing with Britain’s economic woes in the ’70s and paved the way for Thatcherism, the Alternative Economic Strategy remains as a reminder of what could have been. As the 1975 document concludes:

It is essential that the labour movement should now adopt a strategy which meets the needs of working people by securing an extension of public ownership, industrial democracy in the organisations of work and the planning for industrial recovery so that government, managements and union representatives can jointly devise means of safeguarding existing production and plan new investment needed to restore Britain’s economy as a manufacturing nation.

As we face the challenges of the current economic situation, in which we are told that cuts to disability benefits are necessary to “balance the books” while demands for a wealth tax are still refused, there is relevance to be found in studying the Alternative Economy Strategy and the political results of rejecting it for an IMF-friendly, establishment-endorsed approach.

The anthology also superbly showcases Tony Benn’s antiwar internationalism across the decades, starting with a 1964 article for the Guardian in which he argues with passion and precision for sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. He writes with real moral force when he says,

What greater folly can be imagined in this situation than to fail to see it, or to see it and try not to notice it? Yet that is what this present government is doing, voting against apartheid at the UN [United Nations] and simultaneously supplying arms that will maintain it in force. It is just this sort of hypocrisy that reduces Britain’s influence in the world.

The power of Benn’s words on Britain’s role in the world resonates with urgency as we push for strong sanctions on Israel for its war on Gaza — sanctions to match the scale of the sanctions the government rightly imposed on Russia following its unlawful invasion of Ukraine. In a rich sweep of his contributions on international issues, the anthology includes his February 17, 1998, House of Commons speech opposing the bombing of Iraq, with its famous section in which he reflects upon his own experience in Blitz-era London and relates it to the plight of those about to suffer the same way:

Every night, I went to the shelter in Thames House. Every morning, I saw Docklands burning. Five hundred people were killed in Westminster one night by a land mine. It was terrifying. Are not Arabs and Iraqis terrified? Do not Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does not bombing strengthen their determination? What fools we are to live as if war is a computer game for our children or just an interesting little Channel 4 News item.

The anthology finishes with a section dedicated to Benn’s political activity after standing down from Parliament in the 2001 general election, including, most notably, the text of his speech to the million-strong February 15, 2003, march against the government joining the United States’ war on Iraq. He covers an awful lot of ground in what had to be, by necessity at a demonstration with so many speakers, a very short speech. I was there that day, and it’s wonderful to now have the text of Tony’s words.

The inclusion of these two antiwar speeches showcases Benn speaking truth to power in two very different places where he was equally effective: in Parliament and at protests. Key to his politics, as this anthology shows, is the idea of socialist Labour MPs being the bridge linking progressive movements outside Parliament with determined activity inside. As he puts it in one of the pieces included, “the people we represent can only look to an advance of their interests and of the prospects of socialism if Labour MPs harness themselves to the movement outside and develop a strong partnership, which alone can infuse fresh life into Parliament as an agent of democratic change.”

In the same speech, Benn warns that the potential consequence of the exclusion of socialists from Parliament — and thereby of the bridge they provide between struggles outside and activity within — is the rise of the far right:

If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxists, the media — having tasted blood — would next demand that it expelled all its socialists and reunited the remaining Labour Party with the SDP [Social Democratic Party] to form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives, which could then be allowed to take office now and again when the Conservatives fell out favour with the public. Thus, British capitalism, it is argued, would be made safe forever, and socialism could be squeezed off the national agenda. But if such a strategy were to succeed — which it will not — it would in fact profoundly endanger British society. For it would open up the danger of a swing to the far right, as we have seen in Europe over the last fifty years.

This passage has often been quoted in recent years. But as we look at the opinion polls in this country, and see what has happened in Italy, the United States, and Germany, this warning seems as urgent as ever.

The Two Flames

There is so much more of value and interest in this new anthology than that which can be covered in this review. But I would make mention of Benn’s September 1984 article on the 1984–85 miners’ strike, which really demonstrates the clarity with which he — unlike the leadership of Labour and some trade unions at the time — understood its totemic significance. As he put it, “when the history of the miners’ strike of 1984 comes to be written I believe it will be seen to have been much more than an ordinary dispute.” As Melissa Benn adds, “the miners’ strike of 1984–5 was for him a seminal conflict, pitting the destructive and exploitative forces of the state and capitalism against the just might of the organised industrial working classes.”

There is also a moving piece for Melody Maker in 1970 written as part of a debate with a leader of the youth movement in the United States. Its inclusion shows what a rich treasury this anthology is — including pieces that even some of those who already have great knowledge of Benn’s writings will not have come across before.

The inclusion of Tony Benn’s last speech in Parliament, after almost fifty years as a Labour MP, is very useful and thought-provoking, as is the wonderful last interview that Melissa conducted with him in 2011. In her foreword, Melissa writes that she has two distinct hopes for this anthology: first, to lay to rest some of the myths about Tony Benn and the Left in general (“that collection of clichés and half-truths, laden with the usual lazy adjectives”) and, second, to inspire a new and younger audience.

This anthology definitely succeeds in this first objective, showing the intellect, vision, and seriousness of Tony Benn’s political thinking, which represents the very best of the inheritance that my generation of Labour socialists in Britain was lucky enough to receive. And it will succeed in inspiring a new and younger audience if it is read as widely as I hope and believe it will be.

Tony Benn wrote that “from the beginning of time in the hearts of every civilisation there have always been two flames burning, the flame of anger against injustice and the flame of hope that we can build a better world.” To date, this anthology is the best book of Benn’s writings to help fuel both of those flames in the hearts of new generations. I hope every socialist inside and outside the Labour Party and everyone who is interested in building a better world reads it.