mitment to clause 4, part 4, has only ever been partial.
It seems to me that the central issue is not specifically the clause, but rather the whole direction in which Tony Blair is trying to take the party.
The attack on the clause is symptomatic and symbolic of the way the Labour Party is going and provides a focus for opposition. It also provides the opportunity for a fresh debate on the role of public ownership.
Only a massive extension of public control over the economy can provide the basis for tackling our continued economic decline, the increased inequality, poverty and misery in our society, and the growing threat of environmental degradation and destruction.
In entering such a debate I believe there are some issues that the left needs to we wary of.
socialist Facing mass unemployment, rampant employers equipped with savage anti-union laws, and a war on hard-won education, health and welfare services, the working class in Britain faces a real crisis - an avoidable crisis created by the historic failure of its official leadership.
Socialist Outlook exists to fight for a new type of working class leadership, based on the politics of class struggle and revolutionary socialism, this crisis.
The capitalist class, driven and politically united by its own crisis, its requirement to maximise profits at the expense of the workers, has been given determined, vanguard leadership by a brutal class-war Tory high command.
The Tory strategy has been to shackle the unions with legislation, and to fragment and weaken the resistance of the working class and oppressed, allowing them to pick off isolated sections one at a time, using the full powers of the state.
In response. most TUC and Labour leaders have embraced the defeatist politics of 'new realism', effectively proclaiming total surrender on every front, while ditching any pretence that they offer a socialist alternative. Every retreat and concession they have made to the employers and the government has simpiy fuelled and encouraged the offensive against jobs. wages. conditions and un-