THE OUTCOME of the general election will not just have decisive significance in Britain, it will have great importance internationally. Thatcherism has been a corner-stone of the international rightwing offensive for a decade. Its defeat would be a victory of workers everyBut as we go into the election campaign a Labour victory is by no means certain. Over a decade Labour has ditched every vestige of radicalism, while the new style of the Tories has 'softened' their image. Real differences between the three main parties are hard to detect.
Indeed the benefits of a Labour government for working people, at least at the level of government policy, would be minimal. Labour is pledged to scrap the Tory health reforms, introduce a minimum wage, and may not build a fourth Trident submarine. And that's about it as far as progressive policies go.
But a Labour victory, or even a hung parliament, will have a much wider impact than is involved with government policy. A Tory defeat will create an entirely new mood, and at least the potential of a new phase in the class will deepen demoralisation in the movement, and further strengthen the grip of the new realist right.
Expectations in what a Labour government will actually do are far removed from those which existed in 1945, or even 1964. No thinking worker expects a 'new dawn', steps towards a more egalitarian and just society.
But Labour will be expected to defend the welfare state, do something for the NHS, education, the elderly and the poor. It will be hopeless. trial base, or major expected to stem unemployment, to defend the coal industry and not to ruthlessly use the courts against the trade unions.
Above all the very defeat of the Tories would lift the feeling that defeats were inevitable, and that resistance to the capitalist offensive is That the Tories are in real danger of defeat shows the ultimate failure of Thatcherism. It is a failure at two levels. Obviously monetarism, privatisation and the attack on the unions has failed to solve the prolonged economic crisis of British capitalism. By turning Britain into a rentier capitalism and smashing up its indusThatcherism has made ultimate capitalist recovery more difficult.
But, contrary to the ideologists of 'authoritarian populism', Thatcherism never won the hearts and minds of the British people. Ideological commitment to the welfare state and ideals of social justice is as strong as ever. Popular support for liberal social policies is had little long-term impact. ing class living standards. much harder. there. of England. Socialist Campaign Group 11am-5pm 20 June 1992 Leeds paign Group. 129 Seven Sisters Road, London, N4. Tel: 071 263 9450.
stronger than ever - witness the huge majorities in favour of abortion rights, womens equality and basic freedoms for lesbians and gay men. Both Thatcher's Victorian values and the Neanderthal venom of the popular press The most significant victories of Thatcherism were however the defeats inflicted on the organised working class movement. The defeat of the wave of struggles including the miners strike, over rate capping and other local government struggles, and the wapping printers fight, clinched the collapse of the Labour left, and generated a steamroller crushing working class jobs, rights pushing back workThis is the enduring legacy of the Thatcherite years, the one it is most vital to turn around. If Major wins on 9 April that task will be much, If he loses, then we will hardly face an immediate revolution. But the preconditions for a much quicker and stronger fightback will be The Tory crisis exists today for two main reasons. First, because Thatcherite arrogance lumbered them with the disastrous poll-tax, which directly led to Thatcher's personal demise and unleashed a campaign which inflicted the first main defeat against them. Second, because economic crisis cut deeply into the living standards of Tory voters in the south The final denouement of this whole development now hinges on the outcome of 9 April. Socialists must do everything possible to ensure a Tory defeat, and if at all possible a Labour victory. On 9 April it will be literally true that the whole world will be watching. DAY CONFERENCE OF THE LABOUR LEFT With: MPs. TU speakers from NUM, TGWU, MSF, UCATT, NUPE... Publicise! Sponsor! Be there! Sponsorship costs: €5 Individual; €10 local Labour Party or trade union bodies: (20 national organisations with less than 1000 members, E50 national organisations with over 1000 members. Cheques payable to Socialst CamSponsorship further dotails/ leaflets to Jeremy Corbyn MP, Red Rose Club, No. 18 March 21, 1992