Elaine Graham-Leigh explains the origins and limitations of identity politics and what a Marxist understanding of oppression and how to overcome it offers
Before you go
The ongoing genocide in Gaza, Starmer’s austerity and the danger of a resurgent far right demonstrate the urgent need for socialist organisation and ideas. Counterfire has been central to the Palestine revolt and we are committed to building mass, united movements of resistance. Become a member today and join the fightback.
Elaine Graham-Leigh
Elaine Graham-Leigh is an activist and writer of history, politics and fiction. She is the author of The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade, (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2005), A Diet of Austerity: Class, Food and Climate Change, (London: Zero Books, 2015), Marx and the Climate Crisis, (London: Counterfire, 2020), The Caduca, (Canterbury: The Conrad Press, 2021) and Revolution in Carcassonne: The Story of a Fourteenth-Century Rebellion, (London: Whalebone Press, 2025). She is a founding member of Counterfire.