Is Mike Leigh correct that Peterloo protesters would have opposed Brexit?
Mike Leigh has made an excellent film about Peterloo but linking the sentiments of the crowd on that August day 200 years ago with views on Brexit needs to be done with care, if that it is it can be done at all.
This is what Leigh tried to do in a recent Guardian article however. He wrote that ‘Brexit is the epitome of democracy under threat’ to which some might reasonably respond that this equally applies to Remainiacs who wont accept the result of the EU Referendum under any circumstances.
It does suggest perhaps that Leigh’s grasp of how to make a great film is rather greater than his knowledge of history and particularly how historical events might weigh on the present.
We can certainly see some important links between the issues raised by protesters at Peterloo 200 years ago and now.
Firstly they wanted not just the vote but a democratic system rather than one where an elite decided things without any reference to the general population. This system was known as Old Corruption, where it mattered much more who you were and who you knew rather than what you represented. It started to change after 1819 with the 1832 Reform Act.
In 2019 it is clear again that numbers find themselves disenfranchised with decisions made about their jobs, their services, their housing and their futures without any regard for them.
As E P Thompson noted the freeborn Englishmen and women at Peterloo were certainly in favour of the vote, the rule of law and freedom from the arbitrary use of power by authority. One senses perhaps an opposition to a No Deal Brexit led by Boris Johnson and certainly to the principle of suspension of Parliament to achieve it.
However Thompson cautioned on placing the crowd more generally on the political left or right. Many would have been suspicious for example of the imposition of foreign power.
While French revolutions in 1789 and later in 1848 inspired generations of British radicals the concern around the time of Peterloo was that France was intent on spreading an imperial Empire that might include Britain. This touched on ancient notions of liberty dating back to 1066 which the Marxist historian Christopher Hill referred to as the Norman Yoke.
Likewise while the issue of the price of bread, a core staple of the working class diet at that time, was present at Peterloo it was in the wider context of demanding a Parliamentary system that took notice of the plight and poverty of ordinary people
Trying to claim Peterloo for remain or leave won’t work.
What can be done, and Corbyn’s Labour is at its best when pursuing it, is to aim bring together differing views around a common agenda of ending undemocratic Tory rule and the austerity that it has viciously implemented.
The Chartists were able to do this after Peterloo by uniting around the idea of the vote which would lead to a Parliament more willing to protect the interests of working people. Meanwhile the Anti Corn Law League, which could also claim a heritage from that August day, remained an important but largely middle-class organisation.
The Corn Laws were repealed which made bread cheaper. The reaction of employers as Marx noted was then to lower wages so that workers were no better off at all.
The Ten Hours Act passed in 1847 which limited the working hours of women and children was by contrast a genuine victory for working-class campaigns dating back to the post Peterloo period.
Two very different political perspectives.
This post appeared in the Morning Star in September 2019. I’m posting here for the first time on Brexit Day to underline that beyond Brexit there are important issues for Remainers and Leavers to address together
