Historical tradition and community mobilisation: narratives of Red Clydeside in memories of the anti-poll tax movement in Scotland, 1988–1990

Abstract

Contemporary scholarship has shifted focus from a ‘labour history’ focused on industrial movements to a more comprehensive ‘working-class history’, encompassing the broader social parameters of protest with community and industrial struggles unified in material interest and consciousness. This article locates the poll tax non-payment campaign of 1988–1990 on Clydeside, a major expression of working-class mobilisation which contributed to the demise of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, within this international historiography. The analysis is based on oral history interviews with twelve activists who represented all the major political trends from the non-payment campaign. The anti-poll tax movement was embedded in traditions of community mobilisation shaped by a moral economy of housing and amenities, which had roots in the First World War era ‘Red Clydeside’ struggles, and developed through the post-Second World War predominance of public sector housing. The analysis demonstrates how activists constructed narratives of their own resistance in the anti-poll tax movement within a powerful cultural circuit, where the collective memory of past mobilisations and the consciousness associated with the moral economy of housing and amenities informed contemporary perspectives and political activity. The campaign was not politically monocultural. Differences between political groups involved in the non-payment campaign are analysed showing that the need of composure (of memories) led to contrasting interpretations of Red Clydeside. These were influenced by geographical distinctions between traditional working-class areas with strong tenants’ organisations and the peripheral estates where such organisation was weaker. The impact of deindustrialisation and the welfare policies of the Thatcher government created a popular resentment in these areas. This strengthened moral economy opposition to the poll tax, whilst the traditions of community mobilisation provided effective means of harnessing this through non-payment and direct action against sheriff officers.

Key words:

• Poll tax
• activism
• oral history
• Scotland
• deindustrialisation
• Thatcherism

Notes

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2. Mattos, “Shantytown Dwellers’ Resistance,” 56–61.

3. Williams, “‘We’re Tired of Being Treated like Dogs’,” 38–9.

4. Pizzolato, “Transnational Radicals,” 28–9; Pizzolato, Challenging Global Capitalism, 196–9.

5. Bracke, “Building a ‘Counter-Community of Emotions,” 227–9; Hyland, “Plague in This Town”;

Williams, “Nonviolence and Long Hot Summers,” 18; and Williams, “Black Women,” 80–2.

6. Guard, “A Mighty Power against the Cost of Living,” 29–32.

7. Damer, State, Local State and Local Struggle, 1.

8. Johnstone, “Early Post-War Housing Struggles in Glasgow,” 8.

9. Rafeek, Communist Women in Scotland, 40–1.

10. Nehring, “National Internationalists,” 561.

11. Massey, “Politics and Space/Time,” 84.

12. Samuel, Theatres of Memory, 277.

13. Stewart, “‘Legislative Pacemaker or Guinea Pig’?,” 183.

14. McCormick, “A Tax too far,” 3–4, 337; and Perchard, “‘Broken Men’ and ‘Thatcher’s Children’,” 80–1.

15. Phillips, “Histories of Labour,” 123.

16. Butt, “Working-class Housing in Glasgow, 1900–39,” 152.

17. Thompson, “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd”, 83; and Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, 64–73.

18. Phillips, “Deindustrialization and the Moral Economy of the Scottish Coalfields,” 101–2.

19. McShane and Smith, Harry McShane, 137.

20. Hughes, Gender and Political Identities in Scotland, 192.

21. McLean, The Legend of Red Clydeside, 79, 181; Harvie, No Gods and Precious Few Heroes, 20–23.

22. Brotherstone, “Does Red Clydeside Really Matter Anymore?,” 67; and Foster, “Strike Action and Working-Class Politics on Clydeside,” 41–2, 61.

23. Baillie, “The Women of Red Clydeside,” 131–133, 141–144.

24. Savage, The Dynamics of Working-class Politics, 53.

25. Smyth, “Rents, Peace, Votes,” 178–180; Hughes, Gender and Political Identities in Scotland, 35–43.

26. Melling, “Work, Culture and Politics,” 108.

27. McLean, The Legend of Red Clydeside, 18–26.

28. Swenarton, Homes Fit for Heroes, 82.

29. Jones, “Slum Clearance, Privatization and Residualization,” 511–2; and Jones, The Working-Class in Mid-Twentieth Century England, 80–1.

30. Smout, Century of the Scottish People, 269.

31. Tarrow, Power in movement, 5.

32. Traugott, “Recurrent Patterns of Action,” 3; McAdam “‘Initiator’ and ‘Spin-Off’Movements,” 219.

33. Crossley, Making Sense of Social movements, 128–9.

34. Tilly, “Contentious Repertoires in Great Britain,” 26–7.

35. McIvor and Kenefick, “Introduction,” 4–7.

36. Damer, State, Local State and Local Struggle, 1–2.

37. Knox, Industrial Nation, 222.

38. Damer, State, Local State and Local struggle, 6–7.

39. Ibid., 25, 28, 42.

40. Kirkwood, My Life of Revolt, 176.

41. McLean, The Legend of Red Clydeside, 157; Harvie, No Gods and Precious Few Heroes, 20–3.

42. Hughes, Gender and Political Identities in Scotland, 110, 195.

43. Rafeek, Communist Women in Scotland, 41.

44. Finlay, Modern Scotland, 251, 254; Knox, Industrial nation, 262.

45. Foster, “A Proletarian Nation?,” 228–30.

46. Davies, “Right to Buy,” 423.

47. McShane, “Glasgow’s Housing Disgrace,” 38; and McShane, “The Gorbals is not Paradise,” 47.

48. Savage, Born Up a Close, 216; and Ramsay, A Guide to Post-War Scottish By-Elections, 11.

49. Johnstone, “Early Post-War Housing Struggles in Glasgow,” 15–9.

50. Davies, “Right to buy”, 425.

51. Foster, “The Twentieth Century,” 484.

52. Johnstone, “The Tenants’ Movement and Housing Struggles in Glasgow”, 273–4.

53. Ibid., 275–6.

54. Mooney, “Living on the Periphery,” 407, 248, 670.

55. Shapely, “Tenants Arise!,” 69–72.

56. William Grant, interview with author GEMAP Scotland, Easterhouse, 24 August 2011.

57. Eddie May and Tom Brown, interview with author residence, Mount Florida, 27 September 2011.

58. Johnstone, “The Tenants’ Movement”, 352.

59. Neil Martin, interview with author residence, Govan, 4 September 2011.

60. Stizia, “Telling Arthur’s Story”, 60.

61. Sheridan and McAlpine, A Time to Rage, 177.

62. Hatton, Inside Left, 172–3.

63. Taffe, The Rise of Militant, 314.

64. Sewell, The Battle Against the Poll Tax (Militant Publications, 1989) 14; Socialists and the Struggle Against the Poll Tax (Socialist Worker, 1988) 8.

65. George Anderson, interview with author residence, Partick 4 October 2011.

66. Ibid.

67. Foster, “The Economic Restructuring of the West of Scotland,” 57; and Hood and Young, Multinationals in Retreat, 30–2.

68. MacInnes, “The Deindustrialization of Glasgow”.

69. Mooney, ‘Living on the Periphery’, 456–7; Denman and MacDonald, “Unemployment Statistics from 1881 to the Present Day,” 7.

70. Hugh McFarlane, interview with author Lilybank House, University of Glasgow, 16 September 2011.

71. Atzeni, “Searching for Injustice and Finding Solidarity?,” 13–14.

72. Neil Martin, interview.

73. ‘In pictures: The poll tax 20 years on’ Scotsman 26/3/09 accessed 23 May 2012 <http://www.scotsman.com/news/in-pictures-the-poll-tax-20-years-on-1-1305321>; James McGhee, interview with author, University of Glasgow Library, 8 August 2011.

74. Summerfield, Reconstructing Women’s Wartime Lives, 14.

75. James McGhee, interview.

76. Eddie May and Tom Brown, interview.

77. Jim Rankin, interview with author Fraser Building, University of Glasgow, 7 September 2011.

78. Ibid.

79. Helen Cormack, interview with author Mono, Kings Court, Glasgow 10 August 2011.

80. Eddie May and Tom Brown, interview.

81. Burns, Poll Tax Rebellion, 33–4.

82. Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different,” 40.

83. Yow, “‘Do I Like Them Too Much’,” 59.

84. Young, “Hard Man, New Man,” 73.

85. Hugh McFarlane, interview; Eddie May and Tom Brown, interview. ‘Lefties’ is Glaswegian dialect meaning people who hold left-wing political opinions.

86. Alex McAlister, interview with author, Dunterlie Resource Centre, Barrhead 19 September 2011.

87. Jim Rankin, interview.

88. Green and Troup, The Houses of History, 234.

89. Summerfield, “Culture and Composure,” 74, 81.

90. Thomson, “Anzac memories: Putting Popular Memory Theory into Practice in Australia,” 241.

91. James McGhee, interview.

92. Peter Dennett, interview with author George Moor Building, Glasgow Caledonian University, 19 September 2011.

93. Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different”, 37; Abrams, Oral History Theory, 78–9.

94. Neil Martin, interview.

95. Ibid.; Foster, “Communist Renewal in Scotland,” 89.

96. Alex McAlister, interview.

97. Martha Black, interview with author G5 Cafe, Gorbals 20 October 2011.

98. James McGhee, interview.

99. Helen Cormack, interview.

100. George Anderson, interview.

101. Eddie May and Tom Brown, inteview.

102. Alex McAlister, interview.

103. Hughes, Gender and Political Identities in Scotland, 185–7.

104. Neil Martin, interview; Barker, “Legitimacy in the United Kingdom,” 528.

105. Adonis, Butler, and Travers, Failure in British Government, 130.

106. Neil Martin, interview.

107. Jim Rankin, interview; Eddie May and Tom Brown, interview; James McGhee, interview.

108. Helen Cormack, interview.

109. Helen Cormack, interview; Phillips, “Material and Moral Resources,” 270–1.