The melting pot and the British meltdown

In 1977, ,following a protracted debate in the pages of the journal New Left Review, Tom Nairn's The Break-Up of Britain was published. In those days an independently-minded left was a much more substantial intellectual and campaigning current than it is now. All things 1968 were still a relatively recent memory, and the last of the defeated US troops had only left Vietnam two years previously. This was an era when striking miners weren't just bolshily victorious; they had the power to bring down a government. Public-sector wage militancy against a monetarist-inclined Labour government was all the rage. Second-wave feminism was still in its infancy, and a vibrant mass movement against the street-fighting fascist National From was beginning to emerge - including the Anti-Nazi League and Rock against Racism, with its brilliant fusion of pop and politics. The Sex Pistols were banned, yet still grabbed the number one spot in the Queen's silver jubilee year with tl1eir anarchic God Save the Queen.