Stuart Hall on the lessons of Blairism: a project on the left to grasp the ‘change of the whole terrain’ is needed
The late Marxist cultural theorist Stuart Hall was interviewed by the New Statesman in 2012 and in it he touched on the New Times project of Marxism Today in the Thatcherite 1980s.
His understanding of where the New Times project led and what it was intended to be is perhaps relevant for 2025. Hall’s corrective to what he thought New Times was meant to be and should be about remains interesting:
The analysis, and his account of “new times” (the changes in the so-called post-Fordist economy brought about by globalisation), had some influence on the early intellectual outriders of New Labour, but Hall insists that his insights were vulgarised by the Blairites. “There is a tiny kernel of truth in the assertion that [Marxism Today] created Blairism, in the sense that the ‘new times’ stuff was addressing the change of the whole terrain. But what we recommended was that you needed a project on the left of the same breadth and depth as Thatcherism. New Labour understood it as meaning that you needed the same project!”
The post Brexit environment, the demise of the Tory Party and the rise of the hard right Reform certainly suggest a new political terrain. Starmer’s attempt to follow it, close to Blue Labour, is not working. As Hall a project on the left is needed. If Starmer can’t or won’t do that there are others who may be able to
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