IF CLAUSE IV is such an cynical stunt to remind British electoral liability for Labour, voters of their existence. It rewhy is it that of the last seven flects a deep-going unease Labour leaders the only one through wide layers of the LaAbour Party and broad sections of to win an election was activists in the unions that the Harold Wilson - who not ditching of the Clause is ditchonly defended the Clause, ing a political reference point but even nationalised indus- which makes the Party different. tries? It is no coincidence that deciAnd if being politically right sion to hold a special conference wing wins elections, why have on the issue and to ensure that the most consistent failures been it takes place in the Spring rather those most obviously opposed than the summer. means that to socialist policies - an inglori- rank and file activists at union ous line from Hugh Gaitskell conferences will be denied any through Jim Callaghan to Neil collective voice in the decision. Kinnock? Blair hopes that in this way This question, raised by Tony union delegations can be Benn in speeches and interviews bounced and manoeuvred into as the debate hots up in the me- nodding through his newly fordia and the Party, goes to the nub mulated 'mystery clause', freed of the issues at stake. from any mandate from their membership. Even so, he may find the going harder than he expected.
The scale of opposition whipped up against Tony And even if all works according Blair's proposal to junk the to plan, the real problem would Clause in the hunt for a new remain unresolved. political identity for the Labour Because even if a herculean effort managed to sweep Clause Party has gone well beyond the IV into the dustbin of history, predictable knee-jerk reactions of old-guard lefties and sectar- the central problem the Clause addresses - the chaos, inequalian socialists.
The headline-grabbing ges- ity and exploitation of the capiture by more than half of La- talist market system - would bour's Euro- MPs, many of remain untouched.
Growing public disenchantthem barely meriting the label 'left wing', was more than a ment and hostility to this same market system is a consistent underlying factor in the sagging fortunes of the Tories. Privatisation, once apparently the magical elixir of electoral success for Thatcher, has come back to poison the chances of Major: it has become synonymous with profiteering, rip-off prices, redundancies and scandals.
Polls now show that not only do a large majority of the general population oppose rail privatisation, but so do 48% of Tory voters.
But if Labour isto be opposed to privatisation and the disasters it generates, then what is the Party to propose instead?
Gaping hole
The ditching of Clause IV and embarrassed retreat from any notion of nationalisation leaves only a gaping hole where a policy should be - one which Blair may divert from but not conceal by his attempt to focus debate on other issues, such as devolution and constitutional reform.
This policy vacuum is what leaves many Labour activists uneasy. Few see the impenetrable utterances of shadow chancellor Gordon Brown on the market economy as an electoral asset: and though few may explicitly embrace a full socialist programme, many clearly want at least a token clause to preserve their view that Labour is in some way an anti-capitalist party.
Of course Clause IV is by no means incompatible with capitalism.
Indeed each time Labour has been elected in the post-war period on what was seen as a radical alternative economic policy to the Tories, it has proceeded to swing rapidly to the right.
In 1945, pledges of large-scale nationalisation and the creation of the welfare state won a landslide for a far from leftwing Attlee government.
In 1964, Wilson's radical-sounding challenge to 'thirteen years of Tory misrule again served to secure election of a government committed not to socialism but to reorganise and reconstruct British capitalism in the 'white heat of the techno logical revolution'.
Ruins
And in the ruins of the Heath government, with its soaring unemployment, its three-day week and rampant inflation, Labour again ran and won on a platform of radical economic policies offering what appeared to be a completely different approach, only to run aground as it atfight will determine fate of Labour tempted to enforce repeated rounds of wage controls.
In each case the governments ran into difficulty not because of their left wing excesses but because they began openly to attack the working class.
Blair appears now to be offering a platform that would eliminate any 'honeymoon period, and cut straight to the chase, with the full-blooded, undisguised implementation of market-driven policies.
That is not only a recipe to alienate thousands of existing Labour activists, but it is also a formula that offers little to the voters seeking desperately for a genuine alternative to Major.
There is no guarantee that the gamble would pay off. Blair's Labour Party could sell its soul, and still be cheated of the electoral reward. In his crusade against the Clause, Blair has no more avid a supporter than Neil Kinnock. Perhaps that says it In defending Clause IV and rejecting the defeatist logic of those who call for it to be jettisoned in deference to the market system, socialists are waging a crucial fight. It must be stepped up in the next three months; the price of failure could be paid for years to come.