ON THE EVE of the local government elections Helen Shaw spoke to expelled Labour councillors and Socialist Outlook supporters STEVE FRENCH and GREG TUCKER about their eight years on Lambeth council. SO: You came onto the council after the surcharge of the Lambeth 31 following ratecapping in 1986 - what's your assessment of the last eight years? SF: In 1986 Labour candidates in Lambeth were selected on the basis of willingness to fight the Tories. People got through by giving weasel answers: with the first budget, cuts were made. We've never supported a single Labour budget because every one contained cuts.
I don't think we expected things to go downhill so rapidly but after the ratecapping defeat, even 40 councillors refusing to implement Tory cuts would have meant nothing without a better balance of forces nationally.
GT: When we came into office the party was linked to the council through the local government committee (LGC) with an expectation that councillors would follow party strategy rather than act on individual whims.
Now there's no real commuLABOUR PART nication between the council leadership, the Labour Group and the party. Our biggest political failure is our inability to maintain that link.
SF: The rot really set in with the suspension of the LGC, the witch-hunt and the suspension of 13 councillors. The party bureaucracy came in so crudely because we still had significant support in the party.
GT: The amount of effort and number of hours put in by leading officers of the Labour Party nationally to stop our influence, indicate some level of success. Its not entirely negative.
Even in the last year we have been able to lead successful local campaigns. Despite the witch-hunt and the influx of rightwingers we still have a strong left in the Borough. SO: Have there been attempts to co-ordinate with other left councillors? What's happened to the left if that was the case? SF: We tried to launch national initiatives - Councillors Against the Cuts and Then Councillors Against the Poll Tax - with some degree of success. It was impossible, after the rate capping defeat, to organise a diminishing band of left wing councillors.
GT: There are some beginnings, through the SCGN, of work around a national forum of councillors willing to work with us. This indicates the party purge wasn't completely successful but also shows that once confronted with the same issues, some of these mainly new councillors end up coming towards us. SO: What do you think will happen after May 5? What prospect is there is for a fight for left policies in local government? SF: The idea of Labour councillors playing a significant role in the council chamber to support struggles outside is hardly on the agenda. In Lambeth the new Labour Group will be more anti-trade union and will be consciously planning attacks.
Labour's manifesto is incredibly uninspiring. On local issues like housing, a bold policy for house building could have a dramatic effect in mobilising votes and support for left wing ideas. This has been completely wasted. We'll see some significant Labour gains but pyrrhic victories.
GT: When we started there was still an idea that you could Before the Lambeth surcharges in 1986: since then massive Tory attacks have shackled powers of councils act locally. Not 'islands of socialism', which we never agreed with, but at least pockets of issues on which one could deliver.
That no longer exists and certainly won't after this election. Everything is reduced to waiting for a general election and 'don't rock the boat' until it takes place. This affects the broader labour movement as much as the Labour party and Labour councils.
SF: People used to say the Labour party leadership was way to the right of the membership: now its way to the right of society. A recent example is the new housing legislation which will make it no longer necessary for councils to house the homeless. There's been sod all from Labour in terms of any national campaign. You're left with the housing lobby - Shelter and other campaigning organisations making the running.
High profile
GT: Before, we had high profile campaigning around defending local services including highlighting what services existed. Now we've lost the whole idea of a social service in the broad sense. Public perception and expectation of their council's role has changed. People aren't sure what it does other than collect their rubbish and cost them lots of money.
SF: It's criminal the way Jack Straw MP has entered this debate about whether Labour or Tory councils are cheaper? He ignores the central question of local government funding and unequal distribution of grants from central government. Labour councils are more expensive and Straw shouldn't be embarrassed to say so.
LONDON BRIDGE Boroughs like Wandsworth and Westminster get incredibly high grant assessments. Labour councils with massive social needs have had their grant cut with the burden falling on working class people through local taxation. SO: Its a very negative assessment. So why should people vote Labour? SF: It's a class vote, and come election time we're in a united front with Labour for all their faults. We don't agree with their programme - its a bourgeois programme but its a class vote. We've always argued for people campaigning against the Labour council's actions to take that fight into the party and unite with those willing to fight.
GT: Militant Labour are standing in Lambeth. While we agree with a large part of their policies locally, in the longer term they don't present an alternative around which you can build a campaign against Tory attacks. The best terrain to do that is with a Labour council. SO: Many on the left believe it's all over in the local government arena. Should we be struggling to get left candidates on the council in four years? GT: Being on the council is not a task of managing the local state - its a political forum. Local parties have to campaign and fight around broader politics including international, national and local issues, and local government issues within those local issues.
We've always campaigned to broaden the party and the council out. Part of the charges against us were things like the Gulf War meeting where there was a broader political perspective to be injected. Even if local government is totally closed down, councillors only allowed to set the budget once a year, award the contracts and do nothing else, we should still be trying to force them to take a broader political platform.
The trouble is that legislation has taken away real authority from councils and given it either to quangos or the government directly. SO: Your eight years as councillors have come to an end and you've been thrown out of the Labour party. What next? GT: We haven't broken our links just because the party's expelled us. We're still trying to build and recruit to the party and have an influence on it. We have to make sure our experience is disseminated, not wasted.
We still have some influence, we're still listened to and I don't believe the right can bottle up the party in Lambeth. It hasn't been able to expel everybody or destroy political debate - that will continue.
Whether we're in the party or not, whether we're allowed to stand for the council again or not I hope in four years time we will still see people who agree with us stand on the left policies we've argued for.
SF: It may sound arrogant but as part of the balance sheet, as individuals and as supporters of Socialist Outlook, we have in the bank a strong base of support and respect in the Labour movement. That won't evaporate on May 5.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No.61, April 30, 1994, Page 5