Labour Women:
AT a time when the Labour Party is moving rapidly to the right with the likes of Meacher, Blunkett and Livingstone throwing their lot in with Kinnock's new realism, and with the purge within the Party at the same time being extended beyond the ranks of Militant supporters to all sorts of left activists, 1986 Labour Women's Conference continued along the leftwards trajectory it started on four or five years ago, passing with resolutions which stand chance of gaining even a simple majority at any foreseeable Annual Party Conference.
Among the major victories of the 1986 conference, the 3-2 vote Irish unitication, abolition of the Unionist veto and troops; and an almost unanimous vote for an emergency resolution which includes the demand for British withdrawal from NATO serve best, perhaps, to illustrate the enormous gulf between the politics of Labour Women and those of Conference, where historically these demands have been defeated after year.
Perhaps a more telling indicator of the extent to which the Kinnockite offensive has failed to find real Iesonance among represented at Conference, however, came with the votes on hunt. For while Conference voted, again by 3-2 to oppose the witchhunt being carried out "supporters of Militant, the Labour Committee on Ireland, Sections and other socialists within the Party", it voted in favour against the plattorm recommendation to expel members of the "bosses' union", the UDM. Taken together these represent a total rejection Labour leadership's strategy of building support among certain sectors of the bourgeoisie at: the expense of retaining socialist. policies.
the fight in the unions! BY ANNA WAGSTAFFE latest developments increasingly hard left within the Party.
question to which we must address ourselves is what significance of that victory is.
over
Issue
"special oppression" and particularly the fact that since 1979 they have borne the brunt of Thatcher's anti- working class policies results in a higher
Labour women compared to their ease male counterparts imply that any organised opposition to Kinnock must look to base itself among
Party if it is to succeed. While the
Labour point is no doubt valid to a certain extent, it is nonetheless inadequate as full explanation a for political gulf conferences. Far more to the point, it withdrawal of must be recognised, is the absence of the union block vote at Labour
Women's Conference.
Annual year right wing the women the witch aginst
Black overwhelmingly votes of the electoral block influence conferences, instance,
Conference.
fact
'here is no doubt at all that these
Labour in must
But th victories.
exactly the
One suggestion that often arises is that women's weight level of militancy among always which would movement.
the women of the Labour of the major vote in between the two membership
The right wing of the Labour Party political has always relied on its alliance with
LL
ON
STRIKE!
Socialist Viewpoint No. 13 July 1986 p22 the union bureaucracies - which to all intents and purposes control the vote - in maintaining its within the Party, and Kinnock is no exception. However because of the differences in delegate structure between the two the mighty I&G, for which wields around one million votes at Annual Conference, is limited to a maximum of only 20 votes (one per delegate) at Labour Women's Conference, while NUPE, representing half a million women -a substantial sector of the female workforce - had only 9 at
Thus while the victories of the left must, of course, be welcomed, the that they were gained by effectively bypassing the major organisations of the working class reducing te ognited orale recognised
For while many left wing activists within the Labour Party are always tempted to view the union block vote as nothing but a bureaucratic dead on the Party and its development, the truth is that the close political links between the unions and the Labour Party have been one of the major strengths of the British labour
These links not only represent a historical rejection of pure syndicalism and a recognition of the need for unions to play a political role, but, furthermore, the decisive importance of the trade union block formulating Labour Party policy and voting in the NEC forces left wing activists within the Labour Praty to go beyond the confines of the largely petty bourgeois Labour Party and to take up the struggle within the organisations of the working class, to
DOTY