The Battle of Ideas in the Labour Party: From Attlee to Corbyn and Brexit

The Labour party has been largely defined by the battle of ideas between its left and right-wing factions. This book chronicles those battles, highlighting the key ideas and people behind them since the Attlee government came to power in 1945. It focuses on the totemic moments in the party, but pays particular attention to the Corbyn era. It argues that in order to understand Corbynism it is important to appreciate the previous battles over ideas in the party. The current tumult in the party is the culmination of those hitherto battles. The last two chapters analyses and explains what is Corbynism, in a substantive sense, and how it faced the issue of Brexit, one of the biggest policy challenges that has faced UK politics since WWII. It highlights how this led to the re-opening of the left and right divide within the party on the fault line of economic globalisation.