E110: Poll tax revolt, part 1

Working Class History

Society & Culture, Education, History

5.0 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

First of a double podcast episode about the successful mass direct action campaign against the UK poll tax in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In conversation with Dave Morris from the Tottenham Anti-Poll Tax campaign and Haringey Solidarity Group.This part covers the background, Thatcherism, introduction of the tax in Scotland, the beginnings of resistance, and the poll tax riot.
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More information

Haringey Solidarity Group
Danny Burns, Poll Tax Rebellion (AK Press, 1992).
Sources, photos, more information and eventually a transcript on the webpage for this episode: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e110-111-poll-tax-revolt/

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making this podcast possible. Special thanks to Jazz Hands, Fernando López Ojeda, Nick Williams and Old Norm.
Episode graphic: Courtesy James Bourne/Wikimedia Commons CC by SA 4.0
Our theme tune is Bella Ciao, thanks for permission to use it from Dischi del Sole. You can purchase it here or stream it here.
Edited by Engin Hassan

Transcript

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0:00.0	At the end of the 1980s, after having largely defeated the working class movement in Britain,
0:06.0	Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government planned to crown their victory with a new way of charging people for local government services,
0:13.0	which became known as the poll tax.
0:15.0	Instead, they found themselves faced with perhaps the biggest mass movement in British history,
0:20.0	with millions of people
0:21.6	refusing to pay the courts full local councils overwhelmed and disruptive street protests across
0:28.2	the country.
0:29.6	First, Thatcher herself was brought down and the tax soon followed.
0:35.0	This is working class history.
0:36.6	At the matina soon followed. This is working class history. Al-Mattina, upen alzata, Oh, Bella, chow, bella, chow, chow, chow, chow, Oh Before we get started, we just wanted to remind you that our podcast is brought to you by our patron supporters.
1:05.2	Our supporters fund our work and in return they get exclusive early access to podcast episodes without ads, add bonus episodes every month, as well as free discounted merch and other content.
1:16.6	So our supporters can listen to both parts of this double episode now, as well as an exclusive bonus episode with more information and context.
1:24.6	So if you can, please join us and help us preserve and promote our history
1:29.7	of collective struggle. Sign up and listen today at patreon.com slash working class history. Link in the show
1:37.4	notes. For many workers, activists and radicals, the 1980s in Britain were a deeply depressing time. The wave of workers'
1:46.1	militancy which grew through the 1960s and 70s and was boosted by struggles of working-class
1:51.9	women, LGBT plus people, black, Asian and other people of colour, had come to a crashing
1:57.9	halt against the neoliberal counter-offensive of Margaret Thatcher and her conservative government.
2:03.8	Years of rising wages and living standards, won by workers organizing and taking action on the job,
2:10.7	started to be replaced by widespread layoffs, deteriorating conditions and mass unemployment.
2:17.1	This reserve army of unemployed workers was then a powerful weapon to be wielded against anyone still in employment who wanted to fight things like pay cuts
2:25.3	because they could just be fired and replaced by one of the many unemployed.
	...

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