I WRITE this letter following the excellent meeting with Alain Krivine in London, and the relaunch of the Socialist Alliance, in which Socialist Outlook participated: While I am not against the idea of a socialist alliance in that I am for free discussion and debate on the left as well as co-operation in action, I am not for making a fetish about electoral alliances which are supposed to "challenge Labour". In this country class struggle is at a low ebb. This is inevitably reflected in the Labour Party, which is as right wing as it has ever been. Blair's project is in essence an attempt to fuse the party with the Liberals. In effect, he wants to change a bourgeois workers' party into an out and out bourgeois party. ,To leave Labour now or try and stay in whilst standing candidates against Labour, is aiding Blair in this task, and the latter gives him a chance to cleanse the Party of the entire active Left. If he succeeded in this, it would set back the British working class 100 years.
Meanwhile, all these ideas of "left parties" are futile anyway. This is partly due to the sectarianism of the SLP and the SWP, and also due to the disintegration of the Socialist Party.
ship of the entire far left. unions. - to the working class.
•einlist Don't miss an issue: SUBSCRIBE now! 20 pages of internationalist news, views and marxist. analysis each month. 12 issues delivered for just £10. OVERSEAS subscribers 12 issues for just £20. SPECIAL OFFER (UK only): One year of Socialist @uriaoli, PLUS:one year of International Viewpoint (Fourth International magazine) for only £30. PLEASE send me • 12 issues of Sercialist Dudlook • 12 issues of Socialist Duriali plus International Viewpoint. I enclose f... Name Address ---Phone SEND TO: Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU However, the main reasons are that the majority of workers still look to Labour as their party, and secondly that the Labour left (as Pete Firmin. pointed out in July's paper) is still a major force. Indeed, the 55,000 or so votes for Liz Davies means that the Labour left is still bigger than the combined memberThe only successful electoral challenge to Labour throughout Britain would have to include at least the Labour left and probably some of the "centre" also. It * 'would also have to have a real base in the trade However, socialists shouldn't at this stage encourage a split, as if the Left was to split it should be on the basis of an upsurge in the class struggle and a radicalisation of the masses, not during a historically low point. Even then it should be over, an issue important Comrades shouldn't forget Trotsky's criticisms of the ILP in the 1930s, when he called a party of 100,000 with firm roots in the working class a "sect" because they refused to orientate towards Labour. Will Matthews (Cambridgeshire)
Post code _Age - -ON
CAMPAIGNERS fighting to defend Watford General and Hemel Hempstead Hospitals have notched up a massive victory. Months of protests, lobbies, petitioning and pressure have helped persuade Health books. Minister John Denham to throw out a * health authority plan to replace the two hospitals with a new, much smaller, hospital on a greenfield site financed through the Private Finance Initiative. Health union UNISON has been actively involved from the outset in broad based and vocal campaigns that have united local communities against the health chiefs' plans, which involved a massive reduction of over a third of the local hospital beds, and meant longer and more difficult journeys for treatment for the majority of peoTens of thousands of signatures had been accumulated on petitions, and hundreds of people from a wide range of local bodies have attended rallies and public meetings to defend their hospitals against a determined attack from a health authority seeking not only to rationalise services but also to cut spending in order to balance the The SW Herts Community Health Council also formally objected to the scheme, which was the decisive factor in ensuring the plan had to be referred to ministers for decision. John Denham's rejection of the health authority plan is coupled with a statement that Accident and Emergency services should remain at both hospitals "for the foreseeable future", and an instruction to the HA not to pursue plans for a possible greenfield site.
At a point where the bulldozer of rationalisation and the PFi machine seemed unstoppable, the West Hertfordshire victory should encourage hospital campaigners elsewhere to stand their ground and fight on: if you don't fight, you can't win!