Labour's election programme being
drawn up: it should only contain what
he wishes.
However, the Left is still strong but
divided. The support given to the
miners, the struggle against ratecap
ping and the ongoing battle for the
rights of women, blacks, lesbians and
gays all indicate the strengths and
weaknesses of the left. Where miners
have joined the Labour Party they
have been involved in attempting to
replace those who failed to give them
full support; women, blacks, lesbians
and gays have no interest in suppor-
ting those who insist on treating them
as second class members; and while
the Left still has to prove itself in
backing their struggles consistently
and seriously, many are realising that
they are natural allies.
Although the ratecapping fight has
TORY
DONE BRUTE ERENCE POEt BL AC SEC VER ended in defeat (with the exception of Liverpool) it opened the eyes of many, both in the Party and out, to the emptiness of the rhetoric of many "left" figures, and the limitations of a strategy based totally on the will. ingness of counciliors to vote time and again to defer a rate. While the defeat has led to demoralisation in some areas, it has made many even more determined to win next time.
Those who sold out could not have done so more openly and blatantly and have made themselves a clear target for deselection. Furthermore, the situation opens massive opportunities for the Left to put forward a serious strategy for the struggle faking it out of the Council chambers and putting the working class, organised through unions and community groups, at the centre, and drwing those willing to fight into the labour movement.
With the regroupment of the right gathering pace earlier this year, particularly with the defection of Livingstone, tendencies on the left began to recognise a need to work together on practical issues if they were to maintain and extend their influence against his tide. Labour Herald first publicly raised the issue but solely in terms of Labour Herald being the "vehicle" for such regroupment, whích would mean other tendencies and campaigns defying their independence and without ever proposing any organisational steps. A case of wanting to appear to say the right things without actually meaning it. In response to this, Labour Briefing put out its own call, and invited Socialist Viewpoint. No. 7, September 2985, Page 10
nearly all tendencies and campaigns to an initial meeting. Of the tendencies only Labour Herald and Militant have ignored this, reflecting their sectarian view that they have no intention of building a strong left apart from building their own tendency. Out of this first meeting has
developed the Labour Left Coordination and agreed appeals on various central issues see elsewhere in Socialist Viewpoint) and a fringe meeting and a bulletin - probably daily — at Labour Party Conference.
Progress has been slow and sometimes fraught, but these have been important small steps. If the majority of the hard left are seen to be working closely together at Conference it will have the effect of both worrying the right, who rely on the divisions of the left, and impress and encourage those on the left who feel isolated
However, if the LLC is to be seen as a serious force, then it has to go beyond this minimal existence with a few representatives meeting reguarly. It needs to begin to organise the lett in a real sense of building a working organisation which intervenes, where agreement exists, in the strug. gles both against the bosses and their government and within the labour movement against those who sell out. No one tendency on the Left is at present strong enough to claim dominance or command the respect of the Left in general. Yet working together, without burying important differences, the Left could begin to draw in those on the Left who turn away in despair at the myriad of different tendencies, and mount a serious challenge to the present rightward drift. Although it would be premature to attempt it yet OUr model has to be the National Left Wing Movement of the 1920s which managed a significant minority of the Party.
Othe left can work seriously together now, it gives us the opportunity to build a large opposition to the social democratic policies of the leadership, both in terms of fighting them now and if Kinnock organises a Te-run the Wilson/Callaghan governments. It is not enough to start organising against such a sell-out when it happens; such opposition will not readily spring out of nowhere, it has to be built for now, pointing out the preparations Kinnock is making.
Through working together at Conference this year, the Left can begin . to organise its major task for '86, mounting a challenge for the leadership election. Kinnock (and Hattersely) cannot be separated from their policies, and a campaign must be organised firstly to put pressure on one of the reluctant MPs to challenge Kinnock, and to take that challenge into every union and Labour Party body possible. The left working together could make that a serious challenge; if unlikely to win, then at the very least organising those forces willing to fight back.
Hard Labour for BL? THIS pamphlet ought to be subtitled "Planning the Unplannable". It presents the problem as simply lack of sales by the motor industry in Britain, and tries to offer solutions which make no real changes.
This should be no surprise, considering the pamphlet is written by Patrick Gray, a right wing academic from Oxford Labour Party, who had a brief sojourn in manual work at British Leyland's Cowley Body Plant. It is warmly weicomed by Neil Kinnock, and undoubtedly reflects the thinking of Labour's current leadership.
Gray outlines the well-known decline of the industry. In the early 1970g motor maufacturing represented 11% of industrial output in Britain: today it accounts for only 4%. But the whole thinking of the document begins from an acceptance of the current situation and trying to make minor adjustments.
Ford and other multinationals, he points out, are importing many more cars: yet he is also at pains to praise these firms — in case they might im agine a Labour government would be hostile to them!
Gray predictably sees the answer as Imposing some kind of "control" on the market while leaving these multinationals and the capitalist system Intact. The most obvious line is for import controls.
An obvious difficulty here is that the very nature of the world's motor industry is that the big firms need to
A stockpile of BL Maestras. "Labour and the Motor Industry" (Jobs and Industry Campaign consultative document). Published by the Labour Party, £1.75. Reviewed by an Austin Rover export in order to get the benefit of large scale production. If this does not occur, the industry will die. There is so much overproduction of motor vehicles (in market terms) in Europe that any firm which does not export on a massive scale must go to the
Gray cannot confront this contradiction. So his document calls both for import controls in Britain, and for an increase in exports of "British" cars! As if other capitalist countries are going to accept this in order to allow the British (capitalist) car industry to survive at the expense of that in West Germany, France, Italy or elsewhere!
This is clearly no solution, even in hedges its bets and retreats even from speculating on what might happen "ll temporary controls on motor industry imports do become necessary
So right wing is this pamphlet that African "unfair trading" as providing an "unjustified obstacle to the expanSocialist Viewpoint, No. 7, September 1985, Poge 11
sion of Britain's exports" (though the South African police gave been some of the most loyal consumers of BL land-rovers and other vehicles).
In fact there can be no solution within the capitalist framework for the crisis of overproduction, other than an attempt to salvage one capitalist company by driving others to the wall.
Import controls are a nationalist solution. They mean siding with your "own" capitalist class against the "foreign" capitalists of Japan, France or Italy. They mean demanding that workers in another country be put out of work.
This is not an abstract question. It has to be drawn out to its logical conclusion, because it cannot save" the workers who embrace the policy. In fact the oniy real way to drive your "foreign" competitors out of business is by cheapening the commodity you produce. Behind the nationalistic. flag-waving facade of import controls lie the vicious speed-up, job loss and wage cutting of management rationalisation.
Gray's pamphlet makes the point that a good quality family saloon car sells for only £3,000 in Japan. This highlights the real "trade barrier"; the level of exploitation of Japanese car workers.
Yet the document draws the logical conclusion, that "we too need the Japanese "highly efficient production systems"
"It is a matter of fully utilising human skills in management, in supervision, and on the shop floor."
Of course all actual production takes place "on the shop floor". It is a neat political trick - not unlike admiring the "productivity" of the slaves who built the pyramids - to describe the incredible shouldered by Japanese workers as "utilising human skills",
The reason is that Patrick Gray and the Labour leaders have fully accepted what has already happened in the British motor industry. There has
Muse of Japanese methods of organisation of produc-
Tand a closer approach to Japanese levels of exploitation. But Patrick Gray no longer has to work in a car factory, so it doesn't bother him that the agreements which gave workers paid time to prepare for work and wash-up afterwards have been crapped. He does not care that they now have to come to work earlier and go home later; that they get fewer reliet breaks; and that as breakdowns become less frequent and more efficiently covered the whole workforce is driven harder and longer each JaKlongside this speed-up greater exploitation have come attacks on union organisation. Capitalist companies cannot allow interruptions in production if they are going to compete. This is why BL has
series of