Preparing the BRITAIN
hard left in the Labour Party and the unions — it is not enough to rubbish Kinnock, the weaknesses of the Labour left must also be fightback The socialist left is under siege, as the prospect of a third term of Thatcherism looks more and more likely. JOHN LISTER and PHIL HEARSE argue that the time has come for a strategic re-think for the
While at the time of writing it is impossible to tell either the date of the general election or its precise outcome, one thing is becoming increasingly clear — a Labour victory is the least likely outcome. Between the other two alternatives — a Thatcher victory or a hung parliament leading to a coalition, the former Of course Labour's dismal showing in the lightweight, he was only ever the creation of the key union bureaucrats determined to polls is not Kinnock's work alone. A political avoid a repetition of the Foot fiasco, but They needed a suitably 'left' figure to push through a further dilution of the 1983 mani- While he has chopped away at Labour's 'liabilities' as renationalisation, repeal of the seeing the answer in a move to the right. skimpy list of promises - ditching such anti-union laws, restoration of cuts in the NHS and social services, and now unilateral- ism — the union leaders have sat back or even assisted the employers' attacks on the Since 1979, dispute after dispute has been cynically isolated by the TUC; almost every major fight has been betrayed. Since 1983 we have seen the TUC consciously allowing the miners to go down to a defeat which many right wing union leaders welcomed as a body-blow to the class struggle line argued by Arthur Scargill. Worse, the blatant scabbing of the EETPU in the Wapping dispute has gone unpunished - with Hammond and the AEU right wing now established as the pace- The upshot is that while Kinnock's bland grey men have deliberately thrown over- board any kind of class politics in courting middle class "public opinion', union leaders too have done their best to crush class struggle methods under the bureaucratic roller of the 'new realism' — a pretentious Yet class conflict has if anything increased in the work places, with the bosses' continual drive towards speed-up throughout manu- facturing, service industries and the public sector, and the related attacks on shop-floor union organisation. Though workers - such as the printworkers, the fighters of Silent- Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 festo: Kinnock seemed the ideal choice. title for the old class collaboration. power of the unions themselves. seems more likely. the left - who gave Kinnock their grudging support, believing that unity behind the "dream ticket' was the only way to return a Labour government can now witness the disaster for the labour movement Kinnock's leadership has been a fruits of their efforts. examined. DISMAY AND DEMORALISATION are running before the general election campaign begins. Disconsolate Labour activists comb mise- rably through glossy party handouts, looking for something to campaign on in the local elections; others hide from news broadcasts and papers, dreading the next embarrassing The 'dream ticket' leadership installed by the union bureaucracy in the aftermath of Foot's 1983 debacle has turned into a living nightmare. Fond hopes and illusions that a rampant through the labour movement even re-elected Labour government might ride to the rescue of the working class and roll back the tide of Thatcherism have faded: in the crucial areas of the country for the next election the party and its leadership languish at 1983 levels of popularity and credibility. Kinnock himself — a cut-price Judas - has not even waited for the cock-crow of an election victory before rushing to renounce The Tories, their press, and even the Alliance are left to make all the running: their every attack brings yet another embar- • We have seen him try to out-do Thatcher on gagging the Zircon film and upholding • We have witnessed his capitulation on humiliated by the popularly-reviled Ronald cruise and his cringing pilgrimage to be • We have heard Kinnock's team attack the Tories for insufficiently chauvinist reprisals • Now they have opened fresh public at- tacks on black sections - even attempting to Sharon Atkin as prospective can- didate for the 'crime' of fighting for black • The same gang of MPs have joined in the Tory onslaught on so-called loony left' The list is unending: the results disastrous. Four years of witch-hunts, whingeing and radical, less convincing and less popular than weaselling have produced a manifesto less the one which helped Michael Foot lead the including some misguided forces formerly on party to a crushing defeat in 1983. Those retreat or gaffe by Kinnock or his team. thrice over every 'radical' party policy. rassed Kinnock retreat. Only recently: against Japanese capital; people to vote Labour! 'national security'; councils; Reagan; unseat
been uncomfortable: individual employers, and of course a formidable battery of anti- union laws imposed. That is why there is no serious split in the Tory ranks parallel to the political crisis in the labour movement: as the miners' strike showed, the ruling class as a whole - its confidence restored by eight around policies designed to hammer down After all, if the whole TUC leadership will ship, is delivering the goods — with the help of a docile TUC. Of course the process has even whole industries have gone to the wall, and some bosses would like some more elbow-room for their own vested interests. But the key sections of capital are more than happy to see profits soaring, banks coining in billion-plus profits, privatisation handing an extra bonanza to the well-heeled, tax cuts, years of Thatcherism - is largely united the strength of the working class, and pre- pared to invest in this strategy. bureaucrats could not see something in front After the 1983 electoral defeat, the conclu- sion drawn by the labour bureaucracy, and especially the union leaders, was that Labour had lost, and the split of the SDP had taken The choice of Kinnock as the leader to replace Michael Foot was very precise: he was selected as someone with a left background, who could move party policy to the right gradually, and make the party's one. Stripped of its marketing and public relations verbiage, this means something explicit in class terms: making Labour 'fit to govern' in the opinion of the ruling class, and its reflection in bourgeois 'public opinion'. Even in its own place, because Labour policy was too radical. terms, this project was misconceived. BRITAIN It went off cack-handed The Kinnock catastrophe: Wrong answers from 1983 image a 'moderate' whole. But it will also be a defeat for the electoral defeat for Labour will be a defeat for night, the Hangers strikers, the Caterpillar occupation — again and again fight back in defensive battles, a further electoral defeat for Labour, threatening the imposition of still further Tory anti-union laws, would deal a new body-blow to embattled shop floor Likewise, a further period of Tory rule or a Tory-led coalition can only pile on the agony for millions of unemployed; for countless poverty-stricken families on social security; for pensioners; for millions of low-paid, part- time and unorganised workers — especially women; for black communities and every section of the oppressed. The class divide between rich and poor has been deliberately widened under the Tories. A Labour defeat would mean that the exploited and oppressed would lose even the chance to put real de- mands on a government which claims to A Labour defeat at the election will be a political defeat for the working class as a Labour left. To put it another way, while an represent their interests.
Kinnockism, it will also be a defeat for that All political forces in the labour movement are being forced to re-assess, and this will especially be true if Thatcher gets back. In 'new realism is a pretentious range of politics known as 'Bennism'.
In this respect the miners' strike was a watershed. Starting only eight months after lessly grovel on its hands and knees to the the machinery of collaboration under a Labour Their question is simple: why spend public money on job creation, reflate the economy, and risk restoring the confidence of the working class - when there are still vast profits to be made from Thatcher's waste- land Britain? The irony is that every defeat and setback for the working class brought about by the politics of the TUC and Labour leadership serves only to reinforce this ruling class confidence in Thatcher, and to under- swallow all its previous policies, and shame- employers for nothing — in line with the 'new realism' - what employer needs the messy Andrew Moore/ Refles line the irrelevance of the Labour option. and compromise A bobby being trained for community policing Treachery takes its toll formulae of class councils and any left wing opponents of the ment is only ever seen as a second choice by the ruling class, if for some reason its own In fact the main reason the capitalists don't want a Labour government is because of their eyes: the ruling class don't wani a One reason they don't want a Labour government is obviously their fear of the strength of the left in the Labour Party, surge of Bennism culminating in the hair's breadth victory by Denis Healey in the deputy leadership election in 1981. It is towards proving itself in these terms 'safe' for capitalism that most of Kinnock's efforts, and those of the union bureaucracy, have been devoted since 1983. Hence the readi- ness to witch hunt even the not-so-left 'loony' leadership line. However a Labour govern- their own party, under Thatcher's leader- reinforced by the comparatively recent up- party cannot hold the reins. Labour government! • And what must we do, in a period of communists. It is open to attack because it cannot bring success: the fact is that if the hard left in the party and the unions don't grasp the inadequacy of their own approach, then more and more defeats will accrue. The hard left cannot passively wait for "better want to pose three basic questions which are vital for the left of the • Why has the implicit project of the La- bour left - winning the party to left policies, to resist attacks on the working class, to redress the situation and prepare for a new working class surge for- In posing these questions we want to refute one response straight away - that of merely saying that there is nothing basically wrong with the Labour left's approach, and that we must stick to our principles, battle away and wait for 'better times'. Tony Benn often response, while having the merit of sticking out for basic socialist principles, is wide open to attack from the right wing and the Euro- and then winning an election - also come up • Why has Kinnockism bellyflopped? title for the old class sounds as if he is saying this. collaboration' Socialist Outlook No 1 May/June 1987 times': it has to create them. against major obstacles? growing reaction
leadership election in 1981 he lost because of When Benn was defeated in the deputy the weight of the trade union bureaucrats and the parliamentary party in the electoral college. This election underlined the fact that the labour movement is dominated by a bureaucracy, comprising trade union, par- Of these it is the trade