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Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.19. Jul. 2021 A 'fertile ground for poisonous doctrines'? 1 Understanding far-right electoral appeal in the south Pennine textile belt, c.1967-1979 Historical far-right organisations have long proved pervasive, but are rarely interpreted as competitive political parties. While these minority parties and movements never secured significant representation, they influenced municipal and constituency political activity. Focusing on the 'textile belt' of Eastern Lancashire and West Yorkshire, this article seeks to understand how far-right organisations engaged in local electoral politics. It considers the influence of regional economic changes, caused by industrial realignment, and how opponents, primarily local Labour parties, interpreted post-war fascism and the concerns it engendered. The article then examines the growing influence of Labour's anti-fascist campaigns, the popular appeal of far-right politics, and the composition of such group's memberships. As far-right institutional archives are limited, the article uses material produced by predominant local Labour parties. Alongside providing new perspectives, it encourages scholars to interpret far-right organisations as electoral actors, rather than mere cultural and political pariahs.
Reductive and teleological ‘path to power’ myths continue to underpin explanations of Margaret Thatcher's first general election success. The by‐elections that eroded the Callaghan government's majority in the late 1970s, such as that at Ilford North in 1978, continue to be discussed as stepping stones to an inevitable victory, rather than acknowledged as examples of the fraught and uncertain realities of electoral politics. This article argues that they should be considered as part of a complicated historical process and reflected concurrent socio‐economic, cultural and political change. Such contests deserve to be understood on their own terms, with awareness of their unique peculiarities. In full media glare and an often carnival atmosphere, small, often ignored, constituencies momentarily captured the political zeitgeist and determined the national debate. Consequently, earlier interpretations of the contest that advocated the importance of media‐induced concerns over immigration and the National Front have distracted from the effectiveness of Conservative strategy that delivered a successful homecoming, rather than an overwhelming shock victory. By moving beyond contemporary political myths, it reconsiders the strength of Britain's political parties within a more historical context, which pointed to the depth of local Conservative support in Ilford North. Clear political strategy including well‐articulated appeals to specific voter groups and a well‐managed media maelstrom, allowed Margaret Thatcher's party to re‐establish its support among Ilford North's voters.
This article disseminates the initial findings of a project examining political change and party politics in post-war Liverpool. Based on a scoping study funded by a HSLC Research Grant, it explores the exceptionalism of the post-war revival of Liberal party support in Liverpool following 1945, Liverpool, before outlining the initial evidence gleaned from a survey of extant party records in regional and institutional repositories. Finally, it advances an initial conclusion of the project, suggesting an alternative interpretation building on scholarship associated with so-called ‘new political history’. This encourages a more pluralist understanding of Merseyside political history, avoiding assumptions of a pre-1945 Conservative bastion or a post-war Labour city.
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