Post-1918 Britain’s mass Labour party made middle classes fear proletarian power

Evidence

In 1918, new electoral laws enfranchised men regardless of property qualifi cations and, in Britain, also women, subject to constraints. … In Britain, the change in the electoral base (which grew from 5.2 to 12.9 million with the new law) granted center stage to the Labour Party, which dethroned the Liberal Party as the main rival to the Tories. Th e Labour Party won 4.5 million votes— eight times more than in prewar years. … “For the fi rst time in history, a proletarian party became and remained a major alternative government party, and the fear of workingclass power and expropriation now haunted the middle classes, not so much because this is what the Labour leaders promised or performed, but because its mere existence as a mass party threw a faint red shadow of potential Soviet revolution across the country” (Hobsbawm 1999, 187). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 345

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to understanding why austerity-as-reaction emerged — capital pushed back against working-class electoral power. — connects to: The meaning of ‘middle class’ varies by national political history — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2251
• QUESTION: How did the mere existence of Labour as mass party translate into specific anti-labor policy pushes?

Broader Connections

• The meaning of ‘middle class’ varies by national political history #expands (0.70) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2251