Relaunch offensive

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AHS by Ti McRi im 1 YOU MAY OX ANGERS-EMIT WHEN IT COMES TO THE 4% MANAGIMENTIS GOING TO ACT GOD! THE LABOUR Left should be on the offensive. But, despite its opposition to the Foot/Healey leadership on the Falklands, it continues to retreat on the other fronts.

The Morning Star reported last Friday that Tony Benn has firmly decided not to challenge Foot for the leadership of the Labour Party this year.

The attempts to organise the broad Labour Left are so far unsuccessful. Labour Liaison 82 was started last January with the potential of uniting the Left and compressing the energy generated by Tony Benn's deputy leadership campaign into a stable and organised force of the Left in the Party. Essentially it could have done on a permanent basis what the Rank and File Mobilising Committee had done for a while.

But Labour Liaison 82 is afflicted with indecision and plainly floundering.

Meetings

No representative meetings were called between January and May, and Labour Liaison 82 became a mere ad-hoc 'steering group' - as elitist as anything in the labour movement.

Now its attempt to get the Left together to put forward and organise support of a left slate for the NEC is faltering.

At a representative meeting in May, a slate was agreed. Frank Allaun, Eric Heffer, Dennis Skinner, Tony Benn, Jo Richardson, and Audrey Wise were proposed, and, for the women's section, Joan Maynard, Margaret Jackson, Barbara Switzer, and Dame Judith Hart.

Joan Lestor, whose hair is the only thing about her still red, and Neil Kinnock, Michael Foot's choirboy, were to be pointedly excluded.

Still, the presence on the slate of Judith Hart, a careerist land a Stalinist too) was the measure of the state of the Left putting it forward.

Meacher

In the same vein, there was talk of putting Michael Meacher forward in the hope that though he would not get elected he might be a runner-up and thus inherit any unscheduled vacancy (and not do his career prospects any harm in the process).

Meacher is a far-sighted bourgeois 'statesman' by John O'Mahony campaign to cramp inhibit the Left.

Indications are that they might have succeeded. The danger is that the attemp to put forward a Left slate will be confined to vague and commonplace efforts to generate left-wing support, such as routinely happen.

The idea of a left slate implied an organised and serious Left. If it is abandoned in all but name, then the Right and soft Left can chalk up a major victory.

Mikardo

It even seems unlikely that there will be a serious left candidate for treasurer this year - Ian Mikardo having reportedly declined to stand.

Reports also suggest that the Foot leadership may attempt to rewrite the Labour manifesto, and not bring it before conference.

The inquiry into Militant is due to report to the June National Executive Committee. A sign of the times is that the NEC has just refused to allow the LPYS, led by Militant, to reprint their pamphlet on the Russian Revolution.

If the Left does not launch an offensive, then the Right will continue with its drive against the Left.

The state of the Left now, the lack of purposeful leadership and even minimal organisation willing to fight, is nothing short of a tragedy. Objective conditions again favour the Left.

SDP It was the split-off of the SDP that, paradoxically. took the wind out of the Left's sails. The SDP's showing in the polls and by-elections scared the labour movement, made the soft and flimsy Left look for compromises, and thereby inhibited the serious Left.

Having run away from the Labour Party and 'mobilised public opinion' the SDP was suddenly a power in the affairs of the Labour Party such as it had not been in seven or eight years before the Gang of Four and their PLP footsoldiers broke with the Labour Party.

Now the SDP balloon has begun to deflate -very rapidly. The Alliance's resounding failure in the local government elections has shattered its image of invulnerability, and cut it down to size - as an enlarged version of the Liberal Party, looking ser i play an enlarged versios of the Liberal Party's role It may inflate a bi: 350* more - but thing: == hardly be the sace i. I ever again.

With this. pressure I the labour movemer: ==5 ease off. The Left can sad should renew the offersing If we don t. #e =_ =37= ourselves to sare : Je Right contirue: == =p up its otess.= ite tane