After Thatcher: Still trying to piece it all together

Prospects for change, then and now

Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright wrote Beyond the Fragments a generation ago. Inspired by the activism of the 1970s and faced with the imminent triumph of the right under Margaret Thatcher, they drew on their experiences as feminists and socialists to offer ideas for a project that would help create stronger bonds of solidarity and alliance, through the formation of a new kind of left movement. Since then the obstacles facing those struggling for radical social transformation have grown formidably: we have seen - among other disasters - the decline of the left as a national force, the massive impact of the neoliberal agenda, the collapse of manufacturing industry, greatly increased environmental problems and a widening inequality gap.

In spring 2013 Beyond the Fragments was republished by Merlin Press, with the addition of new essays by the three original writers who once more sought to address the question, more than thirty years later, of how to bring together a range of upsurges of rebellion into effective, open, democratic, left coalitions. At a launch event for the new edition, the authors reflected on some of the key changes that have taken place over the last three decades; and Pragna Patel, who has been a member of Southall Black Sisters since the end of the 1970s, was also invited to give her perspective on the arguments in the book. An edited version of these contributions is reproduced below.

Sheila Rowbotham: Beyond the beyond

We have been hearing a lot about scroungers since the recession set in. In the media it really has been scroungers, scroungers, scroungers. It is funny how scroungers are always poor people, whereas the rich get classified as ‘deserving’. You could write a fascinating history of scroungers from the sturdy beggars of Tudor times to the present day. I have a strong suspicion that scroungers tend to make their entry when ruling classes are getting twitchy about their grip.

The scroungers of 2013 are being subject to the same abuse as the workers who went on strike in the Winter of Discontent in the late 1970s, when the first edition of Beyond the Fragments was published. The myth of the insatiable greed of car workers, gravediggers and NHS public sector workers - many of whom were low-paid women - has always puzzled me. And all the more so because I repeatedly hear it from pundits who are earning far more than the strikers they berate. In fact, in the late 1970s inflation was eating away at the wages of the Winter of Discontent workers, and this followed on from a financial crisis that wasn’t of their own making.

Familiar? When I was a child I used to get told to be good - otherwise the bogeyman would come and get me. It took me several years to work out that the bogeyman was just an invention to scare me.

I recently went to a meeting in Tony Benn Hall in Bristol on blacklisting. Electricians, bricklayers, wood workers and transport workers talked about being expelled from jobs for raising queries about pay rises or health and safety concerns that affected both the safety of workers and the public. They described an atmosphere of fear, which constantly loomed over their lives. One said, ‘Anyone who is an active trade unionist in the private sector has to be a very brave person’. Because I am old I can remember the days when this would have been inconceivable, and his words made me realise how much had been lost. Nevertheless, workers continue to resist - although only a diminishing minority are willing to risk their livelihoods to do so.

Many people have come to see our gangster-style capitalism as inevitable, the only show in town. It has become internalised, a kind of reflex. The other day I heard two shop assistants in Covent Garden discussing a car parked in Long Acre without a permit. It was red and gleaming and looked as if it was about to take off into space. The young...