The Icct John Harris;

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Sodialist Organiser AGM Jume 26- 27 In preparation for the Annual the Socialist Organiser Alliance, JOHN O'MAHONY put forward THE Tory government continues its vicious attack on the working class and on the labour movement. The second round of anti-union legislation is within weeks of becoming law. The Parliamentary Labour Party has disgraced itself by its feebleness and unwillingness to fight the government. The TUC has confined itself to feeble protests which lead nowhere. Yet the strike of dockers on June 10th, the solidarity strikes for the nurses by miners - action of a tremendously high level of class consciousness - may indicated the beginning of a turn in the tide, the beginning of a strong direct action working class fightback.

In this situation the response of the Labour Left is central to the future of the labour movement.

Since the Deputy Leadership campaign the left has marked time and even retreated; the right and the Foot 'centre' have gained and they are now conducting a limited offensive. Some of them are arguing for a full-scale offensive and a purge of the hard left and the Marxists. Foot was for a while a breakwater for the hard left, but now he is increasingly becoming a partner of the right in its offensive.

intimiaation There are two linked causes of the setback the left has experienced.

The first was the SDP split and its consequences. The SDP MPs gained far more influence on the Labour Party when they left it than they had had in the previous 8 years. Appealing with apparent success directly to the 'public', they exercised tremendous power of intimidation over the Labour Party. The stayin-and-fight right-wing used it skillfully. The soft and less resolute left was frightened by the prospect of massive electoral setback and retreated. Big sections of the harder left were inhibited. The serious Marxist left was too weak to shape events.

The 1981 Labour Party Conference saw the opponents of organisational and political renewal for the LP and Labour Movement gain firmer control of the commanding heights of the LP apparatus. Thus for a time seemingly irresistible pressure has, General Meeting of JOHN BLOXAM and a draft resolution for ironically, been mobilised against the left by split of its polar opposites to form the SDP.

What happened to the broader left was not, however, a mere reflection of events outside its control like the ballooning of SDP support. It was conditioned by the politics and leadership of this left.

The broad Labour Left is a vast assemblage of individuals and attitudes which cohere only very loos ly, and on issues like the EEC, the Deputy Leadership and reselection. Organisation has been and is ad-hoc and minimal. That the Rank and File Mobilsing Committee, initiated by SO, was the high water mark of Broad Left organisation for many years says much about the organisational state of that left. Urganisation and a sense of coherent political purpose has been episodic, ephemeral and confused. The Broad Left is not united by any coherent and worked out programme of socialist measures towards which it works and for the attainment of which it organises itself. It is not united by the binding, homogenising and integrating power of a common perspective for the labour movement.

Tony Benn is the charismatic leader and so far the major political force expressing what coherence, unity, sense of perspective and purpose the Broad Left as a whole has managed to attain.

And thus the impact of the SDP on the left was to disorganise it. Some re= treated (the LCC, for example), abandoning the key struggle to make the organisation accountable (that is to make it possible that the next Labour government might be a different sort of Labour Government, one under the organised pressure, if not control, of the rank and file). Others like Militant, which like Onan is sufficient was ved unto itself and which only nominally involin the Rank and File Mobilising Committee, retreated into a habitual vegetating sectarianism. Labour Liasion 82 was extremely feeble and has now been wound up.

At the same time the most promising side of Benn's Deputy Leadership campaign was not developed - the turn to the unions. The lesson of the Labour Democracy campaign so far is that the labour movement is indivisible; you can't get Labour Party democracy, or at any rate stable Labour Party democracy, unless and until the unions too are democratised. The labour movement is indivisible. The paradox of leaders of undemocratic unions championing LP democracy was the measure of the weakness of the campaign for democracy, and is a major part of the explanation for the recent setback and retreats.

In this period SO has: • (a) Opposed the general retreat. We have argued that the working class can be rallied to socialist policies. Even it the tirst impact on the electorate of the convulsion in the Party is to repel them, the working class will rally actively and enthusiastically to socialist policies if we fight for them.

In any case no other politics serve the interests of the working class or offer them even a minimal answer to Thatcher 'and Thatcherism.

(b) We have argued that inaDelegates at the SO trade union conference it is not enough to get a new Labour Government -though the achievement of such a government, even under a Denis Healey is of course a centre objective of the labour movement. We need more - we need a Labour government with answers to natcnerism. We need a Labour government which is under some degree of rank and file labour movement control as a guarantee against any more betrayals.

Therefore we have argued for the adoption of socialist working class policies and for a vigorous left wing prosecution of, the fight for democracy.

We have continued to champion the sort of Broad Left unity to fight to implement the decisions on democracy which we helped create in the Rank and File Mobilising Committee.

We have argued for a left wing turn to the unions: our Conference on Trade Union democracy in April in Birmingham (organised jointly with London Labour Briefing) brought together Labour Party and trade union militants to discuss the struggle for union democracy and turning the fight around Labour Party democracy into the unions.

Isolate

Our support has grown but we have had diminishing success in affecting the Broad Left. The right and centre's strategy lies in trying to isolate the Marxists as the first stage in splitting and disorganising the leit coalition they have faced in recent years: to an extent they have suceeeded. Organisations like JOHN HARRIS the LCC, the ILP, and course, individual cart ists who are inevitably be found in any broad m movement, have distan themselves from the Mr ists and some have co close to indulging in wit hunting.

There is now a sizea spread of SO comrai who were elected co cillors in May. Local g ernment has been one the success stories of Broad Left in the sense electoral successes.

has also been one of major failures: nowhere I the local government 1 managed to organ and lead a serious fig back. Defeats such as 1 GLC and Lothian suffer were defeats with nothi that could be called serious struggle. Oti aspects of the local gove ment experience has be the emergence of sectic of the left as cyni traditional fakers wh maintaining a left rheto and even image - 1 Knight is the most notal example.

The failures of t Labour left in locai gover ment can discredit the le In a sense that should be warning to the entire labo movement: the qui collapse of the left of t GLC and Lothian could a dummy-run for the ne Labour governmel The pressure on councill to be administrators rath than militants is inex‹ able. SO councillors » organise themselves resist these pressures al together with, for exampl the serious left on the GI and around London Labo Briefing, prepare a loc government fightback.

One of the major involv ments in the last year n heen in women's strudele The Labour Party Women Sections have begun take on a new life and ha tremendous potenti Women's Fightback, ini iated by SO and whir many SO comrades a centrally active, has grow and developed in the la year, organising large sca demonstrations and col ferences. This must rema a major commitment SO - women and men • in the next year.

Chances

What do we do next? ] fact the objective situatio has begun to move i favour of the left and w should act to seize ou chances. The objectiv pressures from the SD which pushed the left int retreat has weakene dramatically with th defeats of the SDP in th local elections. The SD is still a major problem. Bu it is no longer of the dim ension to scare fainthearts provide an excues for car eerists on the make an thus inhibit what other Birmingham Conference.

In the election, whenever it comes, there must be an organised socialist voice NIGISR

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 17 June 1982 Page MiDDLE EAST war!