Introduction

This book traces the development of community action in the past two decades and discusses its significance for the Labour Movement, with particular emphasis on recent case studies. A major goal for a coalition of socialist interests in Britain must be to build a public consensus in favour of socialist government that will sustain radical policies in the direction of achieving a socialist society. The growth in community action could be interpreted as one important movement in this direction. A major obstacle to this end, however, must be the political situation where something between a quarter and a third of adult British workers consistently vote Conservative rather than Labour. Despite the growth during the 1970s of community groups that one might expect to be sympathetic to socialist aspirations, the vote which swept Mrs Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph to power in 1979 recorded one of the highest Conservative votes amongst industrial workers in any post-war election, a victory which was not reversed in 1983, even after the experiences of four years of Conservative cuts and record levels of unemployment.