One of the most enduring and longstanding myths of British politics is that Labour lost the 1983 general election because it was too left wing, fighting the election on a manifesto that ensured it was unelectable. In words that have become engraved in the nation's history, Labour's own Gerald Kaufman described the '83 Labour manifesto as 'the longest suicide note in history', which is how it is still regarded over three decades on.
It is a myth that has been doing the rounds in the context of a Labour leadership campaign that has seen a surge in support and momentum for Jeremy Corbyn on a platform of anti austerity, wealth redistribution, and a vision for the country and the role of government that has succeeded in exciting and energising people who'd long become accustomed to a Labour Party that had surrendered to right wing nostrums on the economy, welfare, and foreign policy.
In 1983 Labour put forward a manifesto that drew inspiration and direct lineage from the transformational programme of the 1945 Labour government, the most ambitiuous of any Labour government ever. Back then, despite the parlous state of an economy exhausted after the Second World War, Labour came to power committed to governing in the interests of the majority of its people. The welfare state, NHS, and a commitment to full employment laid the foundations of the most sustained period of economic stability and prosperity in the nation's history. It combined investment, planning, and intervention in a radical departure from the laissez faire policies that had led directly to the depression of the 1930s, condemning millions of working families to penury and poverty with little if any prospect of escape.
Likewise, by 1983 working families and communities had suffered the consequences of four years of Thatcherism. The country was mired in recession with unemployment reaching a record 3.2 million as Thatcher set about decimating the nation's industrial base in favour of a deregulated banking and financial sector as the motor of the economy, in the process ensuring the transferance of wealth from the poor to the rich. The result was a spike in inequality, crime, and public spending on welfare as tax cuts added further downward pressure on public funds.
In this context, Labour with a manifesto pledging investment in industry, eduation, council housing, jobs, the NHS, and an increase in child benefit and pensions presented a progressive and radical alternative. It would be funded by an increase in government borrowing rather than tax increases, on the argument that borrowing to invest in the economy is more productive than borrowing to pay for an over-inflated welfare budget given the record rate of unemployment. This would involve the renationalisation of those state assets that had already been sold off and privatised under the Tories.
The scandal of poverty wages would also be tackled through the strengthening of the Equal Pay Act in consultation and cooperation with the unions. Currency controls would be reintroduced in order to counter currency speculation, thereby guaranteeing the stability of sterling and interest rates.
Rather than focus on the budget deficit a priority would be placed on tackling the nation's trade deficit, which under Thatcher had regressed to the point where Britain, once the workshop of the world, had become a net importer for the first time in history, a direct result of the destruction of British industry. Labour's plan of placing controls on imports and bolstering exports via investment in industry and manufacturing was designed to reverse this trend, creating jobs in the process.
The expansion of democracy was also planned, especially at the local level, which had suffered under the government's policy of reducing the role and power of local government in its determination to railroad through its structural adjustment of the economy and, with it, British society with minimal opposition.
On defence unilateral nuclear disarmament was a bold initiative designed to tackle the scourge of weapons of mass destruction on the understanding their use could never be countenanced and were a crushing waste of public funds that could be better spent and invested elsewhere. The objective of the government's foreign policy, as set out, would be based on
the urgent need to restore détente and dialogue between the states and the peoples of the world. We will actively pursue dialogue with the Soviet Union and China, and will urge the American government to do so. We will work consistently for peace and disarmament, and devote all our efforts to pulling the world back from the nuclear abyss. Labour will dedicate some of the resources currently wasted on armaments to projects designed to promote both security and human development.
An essential difference between the Labour and the Tory approach is that we have a foreign policy that will help liberate the peoples of the world from oppression, want and fear. We seek to find ways in which social and political progress can be achieved and to identify the role that Britain can play in this process.
So why, given the aforementioned, did Labour lose?
There are two key reasons: i) the bounce in personal popularity enjoyed by Margaret Thatcher in the aftermath of the Faklands War the previous year, and ii) the split in Labour's vote by the breakaway SDP faction.
Mention must also be made of the campaign of demonisation that was carried out against Labour leader, Michael Foot, a decent and principled man who was treated disgracefully and venomously by a tabloid press that had fallen behind Thatcher and extended itself in fanning the flames of jingoism that had swept the land. Here it is worth noting that Labour intended to place controls on press ownership, understanding the danger posed by the concentration of newspaper ownership in the hands of a few rich media barons to democracy, thus inviting their enmity. In an era when social media and the internet was a distant dream, this aspect of British society was key in shaping public attitudes and opinion.
Taken in the round, the 1983 Labour Party manifesto offered a progressive, redistributive, intelligent, and eminently realisable alternative to the cruel and desolate reality of Tory Britain. Defeat in 1983 not only meant another four years of Thatcher, it set in train the process of turning Labour into the Tory-lite party it became.
Jeremy Corbyn in 2015 represents not only a change in direction for Labour but for the country as a whole. It is why they fear him, and why the forces of hell have been unleashed to try and stem the groundswell of support his campaign has unleashed.
Where Tony Blair is the poster child of Labour's loss of principles and integrity, Corbyn offers the chance of making it a party and an institution to be proud of again, thereby reigniting belief in a politics shorn of callous indifference to suffering and injustice.