The Levellers, Labour and defending democracy under threat – by Beth Winter MP
The following article is based on a speech Beth Winter gave to the Levellers Day event at Burford on Saturday 18th May at a panel discussion on Democracy Under Threat, with Gawain Little of the GFTU and John Rees, author of The Leveller Revolution.
The theme of today’s discussion – of democracy being under threat – is as true today, as it was when the Levellers organised in the 1640s.
Just then, as now, there was a titanic struggle between two major factions, to rule the country – the Royalists and the Parliamentarians. We too today have a struggle between two great established parties of state, to rule the country – the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.
We know that that only reflects one dynamic. It is to a great extent about who holds executive power. Who occupies the offices of state. The Conservatives defeat we would welcome. Labour’s victory would be a step forward.
But we recognise too, that in either result, there are factors that limit how it affects the wider population.
Labour defeating the Conservatives does not guarantee there will be a change in the balance of class forces. It does not necessarily mean a transformative redistribution of power and wealth.
In the 1640s, the victory of the Parliamentarians over the Royalists demonstrated the forward march of society. The continued shift from a rural country governed by feudal power to the earliest beginnings of an increasingly urbanised country with developing industry.
This change that began gathered its own momentum as the early urbanised population and the beginnings of a socialised working class, in London and the other growing towns such as Norwich, Cambridge, Bristol and Newcastle, shared their ideas for progress and wanted to go further than their leaders wanted them to.
That discussion and debate was reflected within the Parliamentarian cause as it is in the Labour Party and increasingly outside that party in the wider labour and progressive movements today.
Democracy was under attack by Charles I. Today, democracy is under attack by the Conservatives.
Parliament sought to shackle Charles’ powers. But sought to do so in agreement with him. Today, Labour will challenge Conservative powers. But how much will it transform them?
In the 1640s, the Levellers, and also the True Levellers –known as the Diggers – organised amongst the rank and file of Parliament’s New Model Army.
Those like John Lilburne and Thomas Rainsborough, wished to change society a great deal more than Oliver Cromwell, or Henry Ireton did. They wanted the revolution that the civil war reflected to go further than the so-called ‘Grandees’ of the New Model Army.
The period saw an explosion of political discussion in inns and taverns of the growing towns. The rise of the printing press and production of political pamphlets – some of which survive – tell us much of the development of Leveller ideas through argument and discussion.
The pamphlet, ‘The Case of the Armie Truly stated’, which formed the basis of a later series of manifestos entitled, ‘An Agreement of the People’, was advocated by the Levellers at the Putney Debates, whilst Ireton advocated a more moderate ‘Heads of Proposals’ that sought accommodation with the king.
Some of those demands in key Leveller texts set out the basic tenets of a modern democratic process.
Extending suffrage and the right to stand for election to all ‘freeborn’ men, was set out as, “all men of the age of one and twenty veers and upwards (not being servants, or receiving alms, or having served in the late King in Arms or voluntary Contributions) shall have their voices; and be capable of being elected to that Supreme Trust”.
An end to political corruption and excessive high pay, described as, “to the end all publick Officers may be certainly accountable, and no Factions made to maintain corrupt Interests”.
Using taxation for the public good, “the raining of moneys, and generally to all things as shall be evidently conducing to those ends, or to the enlargement of our freedom, redress of grievances, and prosperity of the Common-wealth”.
And since the scale of military mobilisation of the English Civil War meant that an estimated one in seven men were recruited into the armed forces – they became the first mass great mass of public servants – and much of the Leveller agitation – as we see with public servants today – was around wages. In the 1640s, the New Model Army was left unpaid for several months, leading to agitation that became a political concern to Parliament.
In the pamphlet, ‘The Case of the Armie Truly Stated’, the Levellers argued, “the Soldier hath had no pay constantly provided, nor any security for Arreers given them, & that hitherto they could not obtain so much, as to be paid up equally with those that did desert the Army, … It was declared, that it should be insisted upon resolvedly, to be done before the Thursday night after the sending the Remonstrance, and its now many moneths since.”
And these demands to improve pay and living conditions continue today. And as the movement organises today to advance its cause, so does the establishment create new measures to hold us in check.
The reverses for the progressive movement and the challenges facing us – as did the Levellers – are clear.
The corruption of ministers is a source of discussion today – just look at the Covid-19 fast-track contracts , or look at the ‘revolving door’ of leaving a ministry and securing a job in the city or on the board of a FTSE-100 company.
The use of taxation for good, as we continue to debate how public money is spent, and how much is available to government, and how much is levied on the super-wealthy, rather those on low incomes – is alive today.
And on the withholding of pay – as with the New Model Army – the public servants of the day – we have seen railway workers, teachers, nurses and doctors, civil servants and postal workers have their pay cut over many years of Conservative Government.
And the opportunity to express our opposition, just as Leveller pamphlets were suppressed and the protests at Putney, or at Burford, are today clamped down on through the Elections Act, the Strikes Act and the Public Order Act.
So whilst we can oversimplify the comparisons – and we should be thankful Britain is not in civil war – there are parallels today between the struggles of the past and the campaigns we will wage in the future.
We want to throw out this Conservative Government. But we will not be satisfied without real change in Westminster and Whitehall.
We campaign for real change, for transformative change, for the extension power and wealth to our own class, as did the Levellers so that we can decide our own futures and not wait for those on high to decide it for us.
And so in concluding, and with democracy under threat, it is worth recalling perhaps the most famous quote of the Levellers – that put by Thomas Rainsborough during the Putney Debates:
‘I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he, and therefore truly, sir, I think it is clear to every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government.’
- Beth Winter is the MP for Cynon Valley and a regular contributor to Labour Outlook, you can follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X.
- The article is based on a speech Beth Winter gave to the Levellers Day event at Burford on Saturday 18th May at a panel discussion on Democracy Under Threat, with Gawain Little of the GFTU and John Rees, author of The Leveller Revolution.
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