Anti-fascism includes anti-austerity, but don’t reject identity

A recent article by Paul Knaggs on the Labour Heartlands site claims the left has lost support of the working class and needs to abandon ‘identity politics’. This article by Liz Lawrence addresses some of the underlying questions of how the left should define class and how it should view identity in the struggle for liberation and ecosocialism. It also makes the point that liberation struggles are not only about questions of identity, but also economic and political rights.

How to defeat the far-right and fascism

The large anti-fascist demonstration of 28 March in London should be welcomed by socialists as a powerful rejection of racism and fascism. It was a statement that politicians of the far-right who argue for division, hatred and discrimination against migrants and refugees do not speak for all of us. We need unity against the far-right andto link the struggle against fascism with the struggle against austerity. It is not an either/or choice.

Anti-fascist struggles need to mobilise against the fascists and to demand a change in the economic conditions which are exploited by fascists to scapegoat migrants, women, Black people, disabled people, LGBTQ people, and anyone else they choose to hate.

Working people in Britain today need an end to austerity policies, together with increased public expenditure on education, health, housing and social services, and a Green New Deal to tackle climate change and create good quality green jobs.

We need repeal of all anti-union laws and strengthening of trade union power in the workplace. We need a viable electoral alternative to the austerity policies of the current Labour Government.

What is not needed is dismissal of any parts of the equality agenda, including rejecting discussion of questions of identity, as something not relevant to socialist politics.

How does Labour Heartlands define class?

A reading of the Labour Heartlands website suggests it defines the working-class as white, male, native-born and living in an ex-industrial town. Such workers are part of the working class, and they need jobs, better pay and conditions and economic and social regeneration of the areas they live in. They need a workers’ government to implement the economic policies that would improve their material conditions.

But these workers do not constitute the whole of the working class. There are many women workers, disabled workers, Black workers, migrant workers who are equally part of the working class and want many of the same economic changes the workers identified by the Labour Heartlands website want. They also need an end to all forms of unjust discrimination, an end to racism, misogyny and xenophobia. Disabled workers need the provision of reasonable adjustments and inclusive practice.

The article by Paul Knaggs uses definitions of socio-economic class based on the categories used in census data, the categories of the Registrar General. This is based on a Weberian model of social class, in which occupational divisions among workers are treated as class divisions. There are genuine differences in working conditions, for instance in terms of safety, between manual and non-manual workers.

Some of us do work in pleasanter surrounding than others, some of us are at greater risk of death or injury at work than others. Nonetheless health and safety is a concern for all workers. The question is whether occupational divisions constitute class differences. The Marxist answer is no. Marxists define class in terms of ownership or non-ownership of the means of production. By this definition most of the population in Britain is part of the working class.

Socialists need to recognise and analyse the changing nature of the working class in terms of occupational role, types of employment contract and changes in the labour process. At the beginning of the 1920s there were over one million coal miners in Britain.

Now there are just a few hundred. Many more workers work in white-collar jobs than in the Nineteenth Century. Some occupations decline or cease to exist, e.g. public executioner, while others develop and grow in number, e.g. IT consultant. Unions need to organise workers in new areas of employment, for instance workers in digital industries.

They need to recognise that many now work remotely. They need to find ways of supporting and organising workers who are in precarious employment. None of these tasks will be done effectively if stuck with a narrow and outdated image of who constitutes the working class.

A definition of the working class which limits it to manual workers or unemployed workers in northern cities does not offer viable prospects for socialism. Nor should we identity any particular group of workers as a ‘labour heartland’ or a vanguard of the working class. Which groups of workers play a vanguard role can vary with time and place and socialists can be pleasantly surprised when groups of workers without a track record of militancy suddenly lead an important struggle.

It’s the Labour Government not the left who has abandoned the working class

Instead of blaming the left and its support for the equality agenda, including its recognition of issues of identity, for the rise of the Reform vote among groups of the population, we should recognise the damage done since autumn 2024 by the austerity policies adopted by the Labour Government. Many workers in 2024 voted Labour to get the Tories out.

They did so without any great expectations, but even so the performance of Labour in Government has moved more rapidly to the right than many Labour voters expected.

A series of dismal decisions by the Labour Government have given the far-right issues to agitate around. These include austerity policies such as cutting the winter fuel allowance, initially for most pensioners, maintaining for a time the two-child cap on benefits, and cutting disability benefits.

Instead of standing for internationalism, Labour has continued to supply arms to Israel and is now getting drawn into the war waged by the USA and Israel against Iran. Instead of standing for the rights of migrant workers and refugees Labour has attempted to outdo Reform in stopping immigration. All these decisions have lost Labour votes.

Working class identities

The working class too needs to change its identity if it is to become the ruling class. Identity is not only an issue for liberation movements such as the Women’s Liberation Movement. Identity is also relevant to class consciousness. The idea of the working class developing from a class in itself to a class for itself implies a process of significant transformation. It is about understanding a historic role for the working class as the last ruling class in history and the class which lays the basis for a socialist society.

This is very different from working class images of society which recognise existing inequalities between ‘them’ and ‘us’ or which view inequality as inevitable and eternal. In acquiring class consciousness workers abandon views that workers cannot run society or that we should think of everything in terms of the nation state rather than seeing ourselves as part of an international class. Class consciousness includes recognising and opposing all forms of oppression and a commitment to ending these oppressions.

Liberation struggles unite workers

What critics of identity politics, and sometimes by implication all movements of the oppressed other than those based directly on class, deny is that the workers movement can be united by supporting liberation struggles. Employers benefit if workers are divided by race, sex, nationality, age and disability. Strong trade union equality policies unite workers in political and industrial action to achieve equality both in the workplace and wider society.

Adoption of an equality agenda has changed many trade unions in a progressive direction for the last 50 years. UK trade unions now have the model TUC equality clause in their constitutions. Many unions have equality conferences and specialist committees representing oppressed groups.

Demands for ending gender, race and disability pay gaps and for greater job security for casualised workers are often included in collective bargaining with employers. This work is often underpinned by extensive equality monitoring of employment data and years of debate in the unions to further understanding of both causes of discrimination and effective remedies.

Identity and the struggle for liberation

Where does the question of identity fit into the development of liberation movements? The impact of oppression is sometimes not only to deny people access to equal opportunities in respect of education, employment and political office-holding; it is to construct a worldview in which people are deemed incapable of many tasks and may internalise a sense of inequality or a belief they cannot do certain things.

If we look at the history of feminism we can see how key feminist texts defend women’s right to access education (Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792) and assert women’s capacity to rational thought (de Beauvoir The Second Sex, 1949). Redefining identity can be the basis for political mobilisation and for developing social theory, which can come from social movements.

The reality of the social movements

Some of this debate around identity politics is conducted in a manner which gives the impression that several major social movements have consisted primarily or wholly of sitting around all the time in consciousness-raising groups, drinking herbal tea and doing some craft hobby, and not taking our struggles into the outside world.

This ignores the dynamism and energy of the social movements and the relationship between analysis, theorising and political action. Sometimes the questioning and redefinition of identity, including changing the language we use to talk about issues, is a necessary part of the process of building political action.

Many of the powerful social movements of the second half of the twentieth century, such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement, took their struggles and demands into labour unions and political parties and community organising.

They campaigned for greater representation of under-represented groups and for their election to leadership positions. They demanded legal changes. They contributed to changing public attitudes and changed educational and employment practices.

Conclusion

To defeat the far-right and fascism the labour movement needs to unite workers around supporting all struggles against oppression and discrimination. Redefining our identities and defending new identities should be seen as part of the struggle for liberation, not a diversion from it.

We also need to recentre the fight for universal values over welfare provision, good living standards for all and our rights as human beings. This is where ecosocialism, as a society founded on universal values in a sustainable relationship to Earth, is superior to a retreat further onto the similar terrain as the far right are fighting on, as Knagg argues for.

Liz Lawrence is a past President of UCU and active in UCU Left.

Anti‑fascism includes anti‑austerity, but don’t reject identity