Musical chairs? IN AN ATTEMPT to stamp out any pposition at all to his Leadership Jeil Kinnock has manoeuvred to get himself elected as Chair of the Party for the coming year.
This unprecedented step of being Leader and Chair has been taken in order to stop the presumably terrifying situation of Dennis Skinner chairing the Party in election year.
What Kinnock doesn't seem to realise is that unless he changes the rules entirely. Skinner will become Chair in the first year of a Labour government - possibly even more of a threat to Uncle Neil.
Women SEVERAL of the "women's debates" at Conference appeared to concern themselves with the ins and outs of bureaucratic change, ignoring wider struggles women are involved in. In fact, the debates around women's representation in the Party and the proposed "Ministry for Women" were very much arguments about power.
The overturning of the NEC in the "Ministry for Women" debate showed that delegates were keen for the next Labour Government to take seriously its commitments on equal pay, women's rights to control their own fertility, improved child care, and so on.
When Labour Briefing Women fought hard to maintain a principled position in the women's representation in the Labour Party debates, they were denounced as "loony lefties" by the leaders of the Women's Action Committee (WAC), who wanted to hand the Women's Conference over to unaccountable trade union block votes as well. Social Ownership "SOCIAL OWNERSHIP" has become the polite. "red Iose" term for nationalisation. The composite carried at Conference did not demand the return of privatised industries to the public sector. The composite demanding renationalisation was only given half-hearted support by sections of the Left (such as Labour Left Liaison) because it called for renationalisation to be carried out "without compensation". The policy backtracking by Kinnock is as strong in the economic field as elsewhere. Ireland THE BRIEF IRELAND debate was focussed on a strong composite motion from ten constituencies which condemned the Anglo-Irish Accord; supported self-determination and a United Ireland; and demanded British withdrawal "as an urgent priority'. Richard Stanton, the Brighton delegate who moved the composite, recognised the importance of tackling the nature of imperialism and believed this to be one of the key
ways to challenge the Party leadership.
tactical ineptness and alienated their defenders even further by refusing to address conference — on the pretext that they were only allowed 5 minutes each without the television cameras. This only went to support the right wing claim that the far left are only out for publicity. Only 300,000 votes (including those of FTAT FBU) were reinstatement. that Amir Khan and Kevin Scally could distancing themselves from Militant fared no better. with the desire not to rock the boat of "NEC recommendations", so fast that conference rejected their reinstatement by
Tif "review" of their reinstate them, conference could not be seen to openly support opponents of Hattersley. clearly lost out with the defeat of Eric Heffer. Targeted by the right and the soft left LCC for years, attacked for during Kinnock's speech last year,
finally threatened sponsoring union UCATT in the week before conference with withdrawal of support for defending Militant and much a victim of the witch-hunt as (Campaign Group of MPs, Socialist Democracy) who supported Dalyell rather than the second Black Makanji, got their answer at the first meeting of the newly-elected NEC on the Wednesday. Dalyell's first vote was to side with the right to vote in Kinnock as Party vice chair against Dennis Skinner. and defuse issues. (Sunday) evening although the NEC recommendation Ministry for Women be given full Although this was a victory for the left and women's rights, those who that even should Kinnock as Prime (health facilities, equal pay, abortion white middle class men. Socialist Viewpoint No. 14 November-December 1986 p8
the cynical and the for their cast The tactics of those who argued by reinstatement and vote against. The band-wagon combined , is moving 3.7 4.4 million to n the NEC elections, the hard lef been off the platform in disgust has bureaucracy. Heffer was Socialist Organiser and the managed it, Where there seemed a chance of bureaucracy attempted to incorporate Thus, on the first and rejected. necessary BNFL campaigned for this are fully aware of cnterence, Minister agree to this the fight would statement was continue to ensure that crucial issues unilateralist not buried in "austerity programme" as government in France. It would also Parliamentary Labour Party elect at least one woman to the Cabinet, a major step forward from the present gang of In production,
Last year, despite opposition from
platform, the resolution on Lesbian and Gay rights won a simple majority at the first time of being discussed at conference. Given the stage management and sharpness of the right wing, it is hard not to be
about the unanimous decision of the NEC to recommend support at this year's conference, which left it up to the EETPU and AUEW delegations, together with some hard right constituencies to uphold the traditional backward line The resolution got 79 per cent of votes cast, ensuring it should go into he worst were done in the movement is shown by the refusal of Labour-controlled Nottinghamshire Councils to implement a basic equal opportunities policy.
Another attempt to defuse an issue ruckus in conference itself. It has
Ta long-standing demand of women in the Party that the national women's conference hold its own Rules Conference - something that
been denied it by the
This year the Women's Action
supported a resolution which would allow NEC involvement in the restructuring of conterence. The only revolt against the "fixing" of debate by the chair was organised by Briefing women, which resulted in women gathering round the rostrum Standing Orders in order to let their opposition be heard.
Twin such a suspension spokesperson has summed up on a
Tis unheard of, but they patronising remarks of the chair. The argument against was heard, and the criticism received by the Briefing women is all the more surprising when one of the present tasks of the left is to defend the LPYS against precisely such interference in its nuclear composite got 66.28 per cent of the vote, just short of the two-thirds
Wto become manifesto But, assisted by a noisy lobby workers outside the the NEC's fudging also passed, giving Kinnock a free hand.
Conference re-affirmed its
position on nuclear arms, together with a demand for a real campaign (passed before, but where has the campaign been?), but resolutions calling for withdrawal from NATO and closing down US bases were heavily defeated.
cleverly stage-managed other controversial
debates were whittled down in time or
called for times when no TV cameras
were running.
Ireland and Black Sections barely
got a look-in. Militant prostrated
themselves in front of the witch-
hunters and disgusted many of their
defenders when Frances Curran
(LPYS rep on the NEC) volunteered
to sum up against Black Sections on
behalf of the NEC. There is nothing
the right like more than to see two of
their most hated opponents fighting it Ireland, taken after all, was so brief
and so heavily stage-managed you'd
be pushed to notice it happened
Current industrial disputes and the legacy of past ones never reached conference floor. Despite a lobby by News International print workers, the motion from their unions was simply on restricting foreign ownership of
- as if the nationality of the press barons made the slightest hitting the industry. strikes) lobbied in support of their jailed and victimised comrades, but the NUM chose not to put a resolution on the issue grounds that it had been won last year and they didn't want it to be defeated. Kinnock of course said last year he would not NUM. The issue should have been put to conference and the movement not allowed to forget the miners'
Opposition to state interference in Union rule books came in a motion from TASS, who then agreed, on the advice of the NEC, to remit, missing
important opportunity identifying the size of the opposition. A similar manoeuvre saw COHSE and NUPE conspire to withdraw a motion on democratisation of the
The debate on the economy never got off the ground. Speaker after speaker rallied behind the NEC's proposals, with the one resolution calling for re-nationalisation buried under a sea of red roses. It was obvious that beyond a few knee-jerk responses the left has not even started a serious discussion of alternatives to the rubbish that is coming out of Hattersley's word processor.
If the class struggle and serious debate on left alternatives to Kinnock were kept out of conference, they were certainly not missing around the
The Campaign Group, Labour Herald and Labour Briefing all held large rallies at which speakers more OI less clearly differentiated themselves from Kinnock's programme. The class struggle refused to go away, with the persistant presence of the strikers from Silentnight (who also picketted
Militant (5½ million against) was even worse in terms of constituency support than it first looks. The FBU and FTAT both voted against Constituency Parties voted 2-1 in favour of kicking out Militant.
Bearing this, and the overwhelming
Kinnock-Hattersley leadership, in mind, the campaign to Blackpool Co-op) and Hormel (Spam) in the USA. enthusiastic lunch-time meeting after which it was clear to all that not only was the issue not going to go away, but also that the role of the labour
"leaders" in the strike had not been forgotten. LIKE most delegates, we were pleases lo see LCC break from the habit of c lifetime and invite a worker in struggle
nto their platiorm. Could this by an
hance have anything to do with th
strike in Peter Hain's constituency?
Black Sections held one of the most inspriring meetings with from a whole range of struggles, making it clear that the fight is not
about constitutional change but the labour movement being forced to recognise oppression of black people and take up their demands. greetings from more fringe meetings than some thought humanly posible. The attempt by Stuart Bell, the front
spokesperson on Northern Socialist Viewpoint No. 14 November-December 1986 p9
Labour Party" reinstate Kevin Scally and Amir Khan from Birmingham did well to secure
major union support, including that of the TGWU.
The urgent need now is to organise broad-based campaigning against the expulsions through Labour Against the Witch-hunt '86. LAW '86 is organising a conference in November, and can be contacted at 39 Talia House, Manchester Road, London E14 9HB. Ireland, Troops Out at the condemn violence organised by the Labour Committee on Ireland fell flat when faced with sectarian violence by reading out the names of 10 people murdered; Ken Livingstone in the chair Catholicout that nine of the ten were
Emerging from the conference was a new sharper level of debate about how the left should relate to the fact that the "new realist" right has clearly leadership, to reverse most of the bemoaned the fact that their project - the "realignment of the left" failed. Having argued for the last two years that the left had to build bridges to Kinnock to keep him out of the clutches of the right, they now confused way, that Kinnock is very much the leader of the right.
Having led retreats and sell-outs
Kinnock all possible assistance in the marginalisation of any serious left opposition, they now find themselves Redundant to the requirements of the
Labour Party
Black Sections