Following the publication of Tariq Ali’s latest memoirs, he spoke to Michael Lavalette about the contrasting periods covered in his autobiographies and the prospects for the left today

Tariq Ali has been intimately involved in, and written about, progressive, left politics in Britain for over sixty years. He has recently published You Can’t Please All (Memoirs 1989-2024), a follow-up to his earlier volume Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties.

Street Fighting Years covers a period of great advance and excitement for the left. How would you describe the period?

The period from 1967 through to 1975 was a unique period in global politics, it was also an era of immense excitement and hope.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, there were revolutions in China and Cuba and the national liberation movements in Africa. But events in South East Asia were very important. In Vietnam, a peasant-based army was confronting – and beating – the largest, best-armed, most powerful, imperialist country in the world. And in Europe that created a very different mood to what we see today. We all felt: ‘if the Vietnamese peasants can do it, why can’t we?’

That feeling surged through Europe, Latin America, and North America and we felt that the possibilities for a better world were limitless.

In France, there was the largest General Strike in capitalism’s history and when the trade union bureaucrats went up to the workers and said ‘the bosses want to share a bit more of the cake with you’ the response from rank-and-file workers was ‘No! We want the whole bakery’. 

In Italy, a ‘creeping May-type event’ took hold with an immensely combative working class active through the early 1970s.

In Britain, between 1972 and 1974, there was the largest and most militant wave of strikes we have ever had. The levels of solidarity between workers was immense. 

Despite occasional setbacks and defeats, the period as a whole bred confidence in ordinary people and a deepening radicalisation that lasted up until about 1975. 

In 1975, the Portuguese workers, peasants, students, soldiers and young officers brought society to the brink of revolution. They created a feeling that a fundamental change to society was possible and was within our grasp. And we felt that revolutionary change in Portugal would feed back, deepen and revive our movement across the rest of Europe.

The stakes were really very high. But Portuguese, German and international social democracy poured resources in to bail out Portuguese (and beyond that European) capitalism and to curb the revolutionary drive of the masses. In the aftermath, the ruling classes went onto the offensive and Labour and Social Democratic parties were important to stabilising things for the system.

You Can’t Please All covers the period 1980-2024. This is a general period of neoliberal ascendancy. What shaped the period?

The second volume of my memoirs covers a period of defeat – not just in Britain but across the globe. The book contains interviews and covers meetings with leaders, peasants, workers and students from across the continents against the backdrop of the rise of neoliberal capitalism.

Neoliberal ideas – essentially a commitment to privatisation, pro-market policies and rampant individualism – took hold of the conservative right, but also, what I term, the extreme centre (in the shape of people like Blair, Macron and Starmer).

The 1980s also saw the dismantling of the East European countries. I was in the old Soviet Union in the run up to 1989. Here people were excited by the greater levels of freedom that were opening up – but no-one was advocating for the implementation of a capitalist market system. And after 1989, of course, privatisation and marketisation led to huge levels of inequality. Politically, it led to the revival of Russian nationalism of which Putin is one example.

The events of 1989 also had an impact on the West. It led to the decline of the mass Communist Parties in Italy and France – and no matter what criticisms we may have of them, they helped create and support a culture of radical critical engagement and thought (not just political writing, but plays, cinema, theatre and other political expressions of solidarity and collectivism).

The marginalisation of the culture of the left has been important. For example, in the past, right-wing Labour MPs were well-read, you could argue with them, and they sometimes had interesting things to say. But today, Labour and social-democratic politicians aren’t interested in ideas really, they are motivated by power and money and this comes at the expense of those they claim to represent.

What do you think are the prospects for the left today?

Starmer is dreadful. I’m in no doubt that his policies will create a space that, at the moment, the far right will try to fill. We need to respond. But we can’t simply do what we did in the past, in the exact same ways. In the 1970s, the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism were vital, but the world has changed, the situation is different and we need appropriate responses.

It won’t be easy, but you know it wasn’t always easy and straightforward in the 1960s and 1970s. It took time to build the anti-Vietnam War movement. We were constantly under surveillance and harassment from the state.

Over the last few decades, we have witnessed the growth of dynamic movements, like Stop the War. Today the struggle around Palestine has brought large numbers into activity. The horrors of Gaza, the complicity of the Western governments in the slaughter, and the scale of the resistance movement on the streets will shape a generation.

But we need to think about organisational outcomes, establishing networks and rebuilding a progressive political alternative.

For the left, the Labour Party is finished. We should encourage the small number of left Labour MPs (especially those who had the whip removed) to work with the Independent MPs and together to try to offer an alternative vision and voice for the future. 

We need some type of home – not necessarily a formal political party – for the 200,000 who left Labour when Corbyn was marginalised and kicked out; a home to those from the Palestine and anti-imperialist movements; a home for the old and new left. 

I think we face a long period of rebuilding, there is no quick fix. But if we sit back and do nothing, things will only get worse.

You Can’t Please All (Memoirs 1989-2024) is available to buy from Verso

From this month’s Counterfire freesheet