Fightback against the Kinnock kills election
witch-hunt! KINNOCK'S Labour Party leadership has launched a full-blooded witch-hunt against the left in the Labour Party.
If you listen to the media or the so-called "soft left" you will hear them claim it is just a challenge to "Militant" because they "organise in contravention of the Labour Party constitution". Evidence gathered by Labour Left Co-ordination, the umbrella group of the hard left, shows otherwise.
From Exeter to the Rhondda, from Stevenage to Scotland, there have been expulsions and suspensions of socialists in the Party. And the attack reaches far beyond "Militant". In 1985 supporters of Labour Briefing, Socialist Action and the Black Sec. tions have been picked upon, as well as a number of individual socialists trying to revitalise the Party.
Councillors have been kicked out of Regional Executives; Labour Groups and Parliamentary Reseleccampaign HIS continual attacks on democratically-elected Labour Councillors in Liverpool: his claims that the local Party is full of "extremists" and operating in a "dishonest" manner: combined with Merseyside MP Kilroy-Silk's branding of Militant as "maggots" who act like "fascists" produced result.
Labour lost the safe Old Swan seat on Liverpool Council, with the Labour majority of 900 being overturned to an SDP najority of 1.000. Kinnock and the Party leadership are so keen to remove lef wing opposition in the Party that they will even repeat the Tatchell experience and commit the "heresy" of sacrificing elections.
Liverpool has borne the brunt of the witch-hunt. The entire District Labour Party has been suspended pending an NEC investigation which is gathering
tions halted on the flimsiest of justifica- tions. In Birmingham and Sheffield, even elected Councillors have been thrown out of the Party. And a new "crime" has been invented: "bringing the Party into disrepute" (which, unlike many trade unions, is not in the Labour Party Rulebook)
We need to be clear as to why the Labour Party leadership is carrying out the witch-hunt. It is to play to Kinnock's new-found friends in the media and to disguise a shift to the right on policy matters. Kinnock is willing to sacrifice the local elections in places like Liverpool and Sheffield in order to consolidate his grip over the Party.
Kinnock wants to ensure that there will be no fight at local government level this year, that at all costs Labour Councils stay within the law. Not even a challenge to capitalism or the state will be allowed.
Up to now, the soft left, including such figures as David Blunkett, have anonymous charges from people both Inside and outside the Party.
The inquiry has been widely - and correctly - regarded as a show-trial. as a bureaucratic method for removing from the Party Hatton, Mulhearn and other local Party leaders. who actually stood up to the Tory Government.
Kinnock clearly wants to ensure all socialist opposition within the Party is removed by the next General Election. He wants No. 10 Downing Street at all costs, and a free hand for class collaboration in government, even if that means handing local Councils to the Tories in May.
Liverpool land to a certain extent Lambeth) were an embarrassment both to the national Party leadership and many local Councils precisely because they stuck by Party policy and fought the Government. Kinnock's attitude of obeying the law at all costs, of cowering behind the "dented shield", arguing that Labour cuts are kinder than Tory cuts. is rapidly gaining support amongst sections of the so-called "left". Socialist Viewpoint No. 10 February 1985 p13
By KEVIN FLACK have been investigated or gone along with the witch-hunt -now they are bleating in panic. Blunkett saw one of his own Councillors from Sheffield expelled by the smallest of majorities on the NEC and must now be regarded as either naive or stupid in not realising where the attacks on Liverpool that he supported were heading. ticularly make sure that the rest of the We should be clear, and hard left is clear, that there are now only two sides to the Party - the left and the right - and there can be no sitting on the fence.
The job of socialists is to defend unconditionally the right of all socialists to organise and speak out within the Party - this must be done whatever our political difterences with currents like "Militant".
It should also be recognised that it is the strength of "Militant" that has led to them coming under attack. The polítics and organisation of "Militant" have been well known in the Party for The remaining pockets of resistance. such as Liverpool are being stamped out.
If the people of Liverpool now have to suffer a Tory-Liberal administration as a result of the witch-hunt. then Kinnock is willing to pay that price.
For him to accuse the Militant of not looking after the interests of the Liverpool working class is sheer hypocrisy. That is the lesson of the Old Swan by-election and the suspension of the Liverpool District Labour Party.
Labour activists must oppose the charade of the "inquiry" and any moves to discipline or expel socialists from the Party in Liverpool or elsewhere.