Rent Strikes - Direct Action and the Working Class

Abstract

The modes and significance of British working class radicalism have not been extensively discussed or documented outside the rise of the Labour movement. Yet there have been times when sections of the working class have taken militant action outside the 'normal political channels' to confront some aspects of British society usually borne with indifference or resignation. Industrial strikes are the best known and the most documented of these forms of direct action but they do not exhaust the range. This paper is a note towards the study of another form of such militancy-the rent strike.