Britain: What to expect from the most ‘proletarian’ government in history?

Labour leader Keir Starmer’s upcoming cabinet has more members born in the working class than any other government in the history of Britain. What does this mean? Will this have any significant impact on policy-making, or will their desire to do something for their class remain suppressed under pressure from Britain’s born elite? An assessment by sociologists Aaron Reves and Sam Friedman, courtesy of Projecto Syndicate

by Aaron Reves. Sam Friedman

The new Labour government that is going to be formed in Britain will have a fundamentally different class character from previous governments. According to our analysis of the new Labour Party’s potential cabinet, some 46 percent of the members of Keir Starmer’s cabinet have parents from the ‘working class’. This figure is much higher than the average for the wider working class population, and stands in sharp contrast to the outgoing Conservative cabinet, whose 7 per cent members have a working class parent.

Similarly, we find that 69 per cent of the members of outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government have at some point been educated in private institutions, compared with 17 per cent in Starmer’s cabinet. This figure is much lower than in previous Labour cabinets. 32 per cent of Tony Blair’s first cabinet had been privately educated, compared with 35 per cent in Harold Wilson’s government and 25 per cent in Clement Attlee’s. Across the country, some 10 per cent of the population have at some point been educated in private institutions.

Starmer himself is an example of this change. He is the son of a mechanic, something he has mentioned several times during his election campaign and has mentioned his roots in the working class. In his first debate against Sunak, he said, “Sometimes we used to be in a situation where we didn’t even have money to pay the bills… so I know how it feels.”

This changed class character of the new government can have many important political implications. In our new book, Born to Rule: The Making or Remaking of the British Elite, we have shown through a survey of more than 3000 prominent and influential people in Britain that British elites coming from the working class are generally left and socialist inclined. That is why they probably emphasize measures ranging from raising taxes on the rich to reducing poverty and consider Britain a racist country.

Class background does not only affect internal attitudes. We analysed every judgement of the UK Supreme Court to date and found that upper-class judges tend to favour the right (such as by restricting the power of the state or favouring big business). Our interviews with working-class Labour MPs show that their political identity is rooted in their early experiences, including influences from left-leaning parents, grandparents and local communities.

There are also early signs that the class makeup of Starmer’s government will influence policy making. Starmer himself has committed, for example, to raising taxes on private schools and abolishing the non-domicile tax – two issues that previous Labour governments have failed to address.

This is not to suggest that the new government is going to wage a class war. While leaders change quickly, most elites tend to stay in place for a long time. So Starmer and other working class Labour MPs – such as deputy leader Angela Rayner and Wes Streetting – will need to work with elites from the civil service, business and elsewhere before they can act.

Our research shows that over the past century, people from privileged backgrounds have been overrepresented among the British elite, as measured by the list of dignitaries. For example, since 1890, if you are in the top 1 per cent of the wealthiest people in the world, you are 20 times more likely to be promoted into the British elite than anyone else. The country’s nine most elite private schools – the group of schools that includes Eton, Harrow and Winchester – have lost their relative power, but their graduates are still 52 times more likely to become British elites than alumni of any other school. Such class production matters, because elites from privileged classes tend to bring with them a right-wing politics that is a result of their life experiences.

The Labour Party has long struggled with this tension. Blair has sought the endorsement of Rupert Murdoch, and Starmer has worked hard to secure support from Britain’s business leaders. Starmer has put a lot of emphasis on getting letters of support and sponsorship from business leaders, even bringing on board a billionaire who previously donated to the Conservative Party.

The corporate executives in our data are more likely to be fiscally and culturally conservative – for example, they support lower taxes and less public investment, and hold more reactionary views on race and the legacy of colonialism. The price of winning over these corporate elites may therefore be that the new government has to change course on some issues. There are, however, some within Labour who are already sympathetic to Britain’s corporate elite, and this is not just because they are wealthy themselves. Class roots can certainly shape political commitments, but prevailing conditions of wealth also play a part. Our data suggest that politicians from the working class who have become wealthy are more conservative than politicians from the same class who have made less money.

We do not have detailed data on the circumstances of the economic influence of new cabinet members, but we do know that many had very successful careers before entering politics. Few have come to politics from the trade union movement or worked for long periods of time as labourers. Most have been professionals who have been well paid throughout their careers. These successful professionals born of the working class form a precarious mix that can express itself in strange ways.

Many Labour leaders may still have an inner desire to fight class inequality, our study suggests. Such MPs will find themselves torn between a long-standing sense of injustice from their own family lives, the opportunity for real economic gain in today’s times, and a broader political perspective. So whatever Labour’s top leaders may feel privately, they may eventually have to suppress the voices of their lower class roots. Class will matter to a Labour party that is returning to power after nearly 15 years in exile, even if there is no class war.

Courtesy : Hindi News