Breaking/Unmaking the working class: An evening with Jonas Patrick Marvin and Ewan Gibbs

Whatever happened to the British working class? We're delighted to welcome Jonas Patrick Marvin and Ewan Gibbs to Lighthouse for an evening of discussing British social history, class life, and first-hand accounts of working class narratives in the UK.

About the books:

THE BREAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS by Jonas Patrick Marvin

A breath-taking phenomenology of class life in twenty-first century Britain. From the potbanks of the Potteries to the gig economy’s algorithmic discipline, from mass unemployment to managed abandonment, Jonas Marvin charts the tragedy of the British working-class and its decomposition — and possible revival — with impressive empirical and theoretical rigour. This is socialist history at its best, a history that seeks to retrieve from the rubble of past defeats the means of future victories. (Richard Seymour, author of Disaster Nationalism)

After a decades-long absence, class is once again central to our understanding of ailing Britain. But what does it mean to be working class today? As Jonas Patrick Marvin shows, questions of class have often been replaced by talk of race and geography. Meanwhile, a collective identity capable of pushing for change has become increasingly weakened and sidelined.

Retelling the story of the working class over the last forty years - from Thatcher's war against the unions to New Labour neoliberalism - Marvin shows how power and capital have combined to shatter a radical identity into many parts: white, male, northerner, homeowner, immigrant, unemployed, disabled. These fragments are then set in conflict against each other. Blending political analysis with an account of his own experiences of class in London and the rustbelt Midlands, Marvin shows how the working class have been demonised and man­aged into impotence.

The working class is more than just an identity. As Marvin argues, it embodies a collective will to demand change, one that can - and must - be rekindled.

AN INJURY TO ALL by Ewan Gibbs

Whatever happened to the working class? A compelling new social history of Britain since 1945

From the picket lines of the Miners' Strike to the Amazon warehouses of today, the British working class has been pushed from the center of political life to its margins, though not without a fight. But how did a force that once shaped nations become invisible? Historian Ewan Gibbs reconstructs what was lost—and what was taken. Through vivid first-hand accounts, he traces the transformation of a class forged in mines and shipyards into one scattered across call centers and gig economy apps. This is the story of council estates sold off, unions broken, mill towns hollowed out, and a sense of solidarity ground down by decades of insecurity. Yet, as inequality deepens and class roars back into political debate, Gibbs confronts the essential question: who now speaks for labour? Richly researched and deeply humane, An Injury to All is the definitive history of British post war working-class life.

About our speakers:

Jonas Patrick Marvin is a writer, researcher and campaigner based in Stoke-on-Trent. He regularly contributes to Salvage and Novara Media and is a host of the popular podcast Life of the Party.

Ewan Gibbs is a Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at University of Glasgow