As we enter an election year, the landscape of the British left is changing. The prospect of a new government, combined with the decadelong shift to the right in the Labour Party, is causing many socialists to rethink their strategy. At the heart of these debates are the prospects for the socialist force with infinitely the most social weight - the Labour left.
Trigger to the split? Lesiey Mahmood on the campaign trail in Watton Debates on the future of the left in parliament have been signalled by senes of articles in the sott Labour lett Tribune. According to Paul Anderson (11 januarys moves are droor to reorganes the parliamentary left, to overcome the divide between the Tribune Group, and he Socialist Campaign Group is no secret that Ken Livingstone " the champion of this project. Anderson quotes anonymous Labour MP's as saying that the Tribune group has beself into a 'purist' cally important !! by Ken Livingstone. come inactive and too close to Kinnock. while the Campaign Group has dug itis a realignment, which would be espe Labour came into government. But if Labour is defeated he new alienment could act as a springboard for a leadership challenge The movers of this project would try to drag in the Morning Star to give it more weight in the labour movement.
Photo: Paul Hermen here should be no fusions about what this would mean. Effectively it is a project to split oft a section of the Cam paign Group and create a new soft left in style Tribune group, which so specposition to the pro-capitalist polices ot osition to the pro-capitalist polices Wilson and Callaghan in the 1960s and The Campaign Group may be small in terms of numbers, but its existence is a vital factor in the maintenance of socialist opposition. Last year's Gulf war, and especially the role of Tony Benn and the late En Heffer in parliamentary debates showed clearly the importance of the Campaign Group. The realignment proposed foe the parliamentary left involves & big policy shift, especially in reiation to Europe. Ken Livingstone openly advocates that the Labour left drop its oppositional stance towards the capitalists fortress Europe' If the project to create a new soft left was successful it would be the culmination of the defeats suffered by the class struggle left in the 1980s, in particular the defeat of the miners strike and the defeat of the rate capping struggle. These defeats swung a whole swathe of the Bennite Teft to the right, especially in local Far from being essential if Kinnock won the election, the principled ocialist opposition would be : lisaster. Under Labour, the le needs to be organising a fight to repeal the trade the union laws, drastically cut defence spending to rescue the NHS and other ser vices, re-nationalise privatised Industries and defend the rights of the oppressed. 'Tribunism' has never been able to deal with Labour in power; the pressure to sustain and support a Labour government against all opposition has always proved too great - as has the lure of office. The crisis and semi-collapse of the Party pawned a series of new project Those most loyal to the ideas o Marxism Today are hardly part of the left at all. Others who retain a