nnolog ernme Smith wavering on Plant Report Ferriday had to half-inch the THE BRITISH labour movement confronts huge strug. gles and big political questions. But for some on the left, the very secondary issue of proportional representation is regarded as a big issue dividing the left.
Leftwingers who oppose it regard PR as no more than part of the armoury of the right-wing "modernisers' who want to build pacts with the Liberal Democrats. This is false logic.
Democratic
The arguments for PR go way beyond whether or not it technically makes coalitions more likely. It is an important democratic Issue; and many left wingers, including Arthur Scargill, Ken Livingstone and Labour Party Black Sections support PR.
The issue has been brought to life by the decision of a narrow majority of the Labour Party's Plant Commission to propose a system of PR.
According to many opponents of PR on the Labour left. this would mean institutional. ised coalitionism, no more majority Labour governments and the growth of fascism.
This way of arguing ignores the fact that pacts and coalitions have been a constant theme of British parilamentary politics without PR.
Labour has participated in formal and informal coalitions many times in its history, most recently the Lib-Lab pact under Callaghan, ( and the agreement between all three front benches which ensured support for the Gulf War. Labour MP Austen Mitchell - proponent of PR Coalitionism has to be confronted politically by fighting for working class independence and anti-capitalist politics, not by a vain hope of excluding it by cars ord parcus vous sys tem.
The argument that PR allows the growth of fascism is fatuous. Fascism grows in particular economic and political circumstances. It is not primary a parliamentary movement. but builds its support in the streets.
Hoping that undemocratic voting systems will curb the fascists is in effect to argue against any democratic reform which allows political 'extremes' (including the far left) to be heard. It is an argument for maintaining the straightjacket monopoty of offcial and 'mainstream politics.
In short, socialists should be in favour of democratic reforms, even within bourgeois democгасу.
What lies behind much of the ism; in which a minority Labour gover tiere is crostco to carty through socialist measures.
Bureaucratic
The idea of a Labour government with minority support (or even a large majority!) carrying Intouch radical socialist messures is highly unrealistic. It also reveals a very bureaucratic notion of socialism and socialist transition.
While socialists should support PR, they should keep the whole argument in perspective; the left must reject the view that a position either way on PR determines which side of the 'class divide anyone stands on. The left has enough enemies without creating false ones.