dilemma left's
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 11 December 1988/January 1989 will simply be attacked as oppositionists. While the Socialist Conference may vet he ahle to wel- Fortunatcly the Benn-Heffer campaign and the Socialist Conference movement have kept encialism on the Labour party agenda. Socialist Outlook will continue covering the debates that At the Tribune conference, Labow Briefing hunts. On this basis, Briefing welcomed the move away from Kinnock, and advocated joint campaigns in defence of unilateralism and com- adopted a similar there, encouraging wider participation in the Chesterfield process from which the soft left have excluded themscives Socialist Outlook shares the view put by Briefing and Kevin Davey; but we would now go further. It is clearthat there will be no serious realignments on the soft left for the foresecable In our view there is no way you can defend unilateralism and common ownership without breaking from Kinnock: individuals whn try come a few refugees from the soft left, its most important task will be working alongside those and those on the hard left such as the Campaign Hain's hope of soft left realignment has failed. There is going to be no equivalent in coherent strategy than Huin: they have no intention of breaking or even loosening their ties to Kin- nock. Instead they used Todd's speech as a pretext to launch their attack on Labour's links with the unions, and advocating further water- ing down of membership participation in the CLPs through introducing one member one argued that any realignment must be accom- panied hy a decision to oppose all further witch Kevin Davey of the Socialist Socicty Group, Campaign 89 and the Socialist Con- fighting hack against the Thatcher offensive. Ironically the LCC has a more England of Scottish Labour Action. Roy Hattersley: the choice is for him, or against rather than been excluded. mon ownership- develop: Ference. flop. Only 150 tumed up on the first day, show- ing any soft left momentum frum the Todd speech had been lost, among those present there The exient of Hain's isolation surprised even ly argued that there was little space for manouevre between the Kinnock leadership However the Tribune conference proved a was little enthusiasm for the Hain proposals, those such as Labour Briefing who had correct: peal fora new soft left organisation, slamming the Tribunc group of MPs as Kinnock's "payroll vote, However, like Todd, Hain was careful also to attack the hard left, accusing the Campaign Group of offering little more than There is even a procedent for the kind of parts of the Labour Coordinating Committee (LCC) have broken away over the issue of not- payment of poll tax to form Scottish Labour Ac- This was when Peter Hain launched his ap realignment Hain was advocating: in Scotland, "slogans" and "aftacks on the leadership", Heffer: holding back new realism with up to 500 people expocted HOTO: Piers Cavendish/Reflex in the press the week E and extensively trailed available For sa let up is police is larr hilled as a major event leadership, and finds barely enough space to swing a by shadow cabinet and beforchand, it was Labour NEC speakers, Well publicised at Labour conference, graced curred in the wake of Todd's speech, and was proved beyond doubt that for this leadership The Tribune 'Hard Labour' conference oc- aimed at those who feel "tom organisationally there is no such thing as a loyal critic: you are that it is impossible to make any criticisms of between the party's right and the sectarian left". The media dwelt extensively on Todd's defence of unilateral nuclear disarmament and common ownership, and highlighted his rather weak criticisms of the policy review, together with his quotable views on people with sharp suits and cordless telephones, clipboards and the leadership without the Walworth Road In their different ways, the Ron Todd's Tribune's own 'Hard Labour' con- soft left organisation all highlight a growing disquiet on the soft left with the Unfortunately, these criticisms are raised in the context of support for the existing leader- ship: yet the soft left are up against the problem whispering machine labelling you an unaccep- speech at the Tribune rally in Blackpool, ference, and Peter Hain's call for a new port for Kinnock counted for nothing: i What happened to Todd illustrates MPs queued up to voice their attacks on g him to any televimon camera or reporter prepared to listen. Labelled a 3 "dinosaur, and with his speech writer O hounded out of Blackpool, Todd O received what the NUM's Billy & What the media studiously ignored about the nostalgics who look back to wards to soft pedal his attack on the Aims and Values document, allowing that 'it's not casy to define socialism in Etherington called "the Anhur Scargill The leadership's attitude to Todd were Todd's efforts to distance himself from the hard lelt He was scathing a misty past, and leaned over back- the dilemma of the soft left. All his sup- Kinnock-Hattersley leadership. either a Kinnockite or an opponent. scientific samples*, table oppositionist. a small pamphlet*. treatment*. Page 12 cat.
serous analysis of voting trends reveals, of to the LPYS! Or perhaps it was due to the fact that young people were aware of the ongoing course, 4 much more complicated web of causes and effects. But what of the results of the Conveniently cough, given the general witch-hunting policy of the Kinnock leader- ship, hashing the Militant in the LPYS emerged tempts to create a more centralised, top-down party, national executive control of the party's youth campaigning emerged as a key way of Lahlishment of a National Youth Campaigns reorganisation of Labour's youth structures? A a a key way of winning back the youth vote. Conveniently also, given the leadership's at- making the party more relevant to young Lahour's 1987 conference endorsed the es- Committee (NYCC) and provision for the set- ling up of regional youth campaigns commit- lees. Memhership of the commitice wasincom- prise representatives of the LPYS, the National Organisation of Labour Students (NOLS), youth trade union representatives, Red Wedge and the chair of the national executive's youth To all intents and purposes this committee was to become the leadership of the party's pervision of the party's national executive. From being the party youth organisation, the LPYS was reduced to the status of a participant Any doubt as to whether the reorganisation Page 13 youth campaigning work, under the direct su "consultation'? in the NYCC. of the Militant tendency - the leading force in In the words of Tom Sawyer, NUPE deputy al executive's youth committee, "The present style and approach of the YS. allied to com- placency in the party as a whole, has meant that we have rumed off large numhers of young people. Generously, Sawyer pointed out in this 1986 Chartistarticle, "The hlame forthe party's inability to capture the youth vote cannot be placed solely with the YS." (Emphasis added) (The implication, of course, is that it can take believed, in all honesty, that the activities of the negatively the voling intentions of hundreds of general secretary and chair of the party nation- most of the blame!) So what was the problem know that the LPYS is dominated by the It is barely credible that these people LPYS (7000-strng in 1983, according to generous estimates, and without a single party political broadcast, television intervicw oreven major newspaper article to its credit) influenced thousands of young voters. Surely the general presentation of Labour's policies by the party leadership during the campaign had more of an effect? Nevertheless, such was the common sense upon which the consultation' was amongst young men and an |1 percent increase amongst young women. According to Sawyer's logic this increase should properly be attributed In 1987 there was an improvement in Labour's youth vote: a marginal incrcase with the LPYS? Here is Sawyer again, Militant tendency,' Case proven. the LPYS since 1970. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 11 December 1988/January 1989 event of the 1983 general election cam- than voted Lahour - an historic low- *Let's bomb Russia, quipped Kenny Everett during the only national youth paign: a reactionary jamboree or- ganised by the Young Conservatives. In that election more young people, in the 18-24 age group, voted Tory or Alliance point in Labour's electoral fortunes amongst young people. After 1983 the task of reversing the disastrously low youth vote for Labour was seen as a By 1986 Neil Kinnock had been seen in a pop video with Tracy Ullman (remember her?) and Red Wedge was touring the country, taking Pappy, populist pro-Labour propaganda to the nation's youth. Labour had started to 'listen" In young people - or, at least to those who were But, alnngside the agitpop and PR. another process was iniriated by the party leadership in 1986: a "consultation' of all sections of the War there a connection between the party's performance amongst young tonal wisdom amongst the Kinnockitex was that, yes, an organisational restructuring was a prerequisite to regaining the youth vote. And at the heart of the organisatioral problem (aR of so many problems according to the world-view of the soft left was the supposedly pernicious role party on the subject of the party's youth or people and its youth structures? The conven- listening to Billy Bragg and Paul Weller. priority by the party leadership. poor electoral
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