Race on the Tribune Group crisis

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OF MARSHMALLOWS! Socialist Organiser Alliance THE recently published new issue of the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin throws cold water on any talk of economic recovery in Britain.

Over the last nine months, it reports, industrial output has been more or less unchanged. There was a slight increase in production during 1981, but it petered out after the autumn.

For next year the Bank of England - slightly more optimistic than other bourgeois experts - predicts growth of 2 or 3 per cent. However, it adds: "Growth of this sort would probably be insufficient to stop the continued growth of unemployment"

In 1981, the Bank reports, protit rates were the lowest ever recorded. The pre-tax real rate of return on trading assets and commercial companies (excluding North Sea Oil) was 2.75%. In the 1960s this profit rate used to be 10% or more, and it has been drifting downwards ever since, with only a brief upwards flip in 197778.

About the only encouraging sign the Bank can see -from its point of view - is a rapid increase in productivity. Between late 1980 and late 1981 productivity in manufacturing increased about 8%, according to the Bank's figures.

But this increase clearly does not reflect a lot of new technology, lighter work, and corresponding higher wages. On the contrary: the reality behind it is speed-up, job cuts, and cuts in real wages.

As Marx explained in Capital: "The overwork of the employed part of the working class swelis the ranks of the reserve; while, conversely, the increased pressure which, through competition, the members of the reserve exert upon those who are in work... subjects them more completely to the dictatorship of capital. (Thus we have) the condemnation of one part of the working class to enforced idleness by overwork of the other portion, and the converse... THE Tribune Group's decision on Monday to back the Foot leadership's line over witch hunts is a wateshed decis on for the left in the Labour Party.

It marks a new stage in the rapid movement to the right of certain establishment figures in the Tribune Group. And it poses new questions as to how the Left should best organise itself to win the ideological battle now under way in the The resolution, moved by Stan Orme and carried by the microscopic majority of 2, backed the leadership's line on witch-hunting to the hilt. One of the resolution's major features was that it pretended that the attack on the Militant tendency was a friendly act by a benign NEC, unworthy of the wicked description witch-hunt.

Register

The proposed register of organisations and the implied threat of expulsion for Militant is no such friendly act. It is based on the proposition that the left in the party is dangerous and needs rigorous control.

The Militant Tendency is not a threat to the continued existence of the Labour Party. Many of work for the party. Considering the massive input of resources which Militant have put into organising in constituency parties, It is remarkable that they have made so little headway in winning control of CLPs. :

To argue that expulsion of the Militant is essential to the electoral survival of Labour is just piain crazy: indeed, their credibility is greatly enhanced by the Labour leadership, who Claim that they are an incubus.

The witch-hunters attack on Militant credit: the organisation with ar importance it does no have and does not deserve But the real reason for creating the device of ¿ register is to intimidate threaten and possibly expe the other organisations or the left such as the Cam paign for Labour Party Democracy, which are : real threat to the future domination of the right.

The right have lost con trol in the Party. The only way in which they car reconstruct a policy-making majority is to expel sections of the left. The register is in this context, a peculiarly effective mechanism fol intimidation.

Each year

Each year, every organisation would have to submit itself for re-registration, with the possibility that a malevolently-inclined NEC coula impose ae-registration because it disliked the organisation's politics.

The register also favours the infiltration of organisations by their implacable opponents. As every organisation's meetings would have to be open to all members of the Labour Party we could see Denis Healey turning up at the monthly executive meetings of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (or • Ian Mikardo paying a comradely visit to the committee of Trade Unions for a Labour Victory!).

The presence of registration will reintroduce the old proscribed list. Groups that do not register, or who are struck off by the NEC, in recent months has been to prevent initiatives from getting off the ground. They have exercised their veto over condemnation in the witch-hunt. They exercised their veto over the deputy leadership con -test. They exercised their veto over linking the Tribune Group with organisations in the trade unions and CLPs put forward in order to build a Broad Left in the Party.

Soft left

The tactics of the soft left are in opposition to ours. There seems to be no concession to the opinions of the right or the editorial AT the June meeting of Rochdale District Labour Party, the following resolution was passed:

"This DLP rejects the NEC's call for the setting up of a register (proscribed list) Further this DLP organises a day conference inviting all CLPs, Labour Groups, LPYS opinions of the Daily Mail which they would be unwilling to make in order to maintain their position in the party.

Historic

What we are now seeing is a historic change in the structure of the left in the Labour Party. Under right wing ideological pressure, and as British politics has shifted to the right under the impact of Thatcher monetarism and the Falklands war, the marshmallows have been forced to drift at an increasing speed to the right in order to maintain what they see as their credibility in the which was intended the party of all those left of Denis Healey.

• The day conference wil take place on the second Saturday in August with a suggestion that a march takes place at the Labour Party conference to show the NEC the anger felt by Labour Party activists in the The key question for socialists to ask themselves is this: is the Tribune Group now the vehicle for the left in the PLP?

A broad alliance strategy sometimes works. But it is useless if you have to make too many concessions of political principle to those who oppose you.

What is needed now is a campaign. to refuse to register, to refuse. to implement expulsions, to say no to the witchhunters, to win back the NEC for sanity and socialism. The future of the Labour Party is in your hands. the conference is a success so that the campaign against the witch-hunt can be mounted Further details can be obtained from Peter Corby, Rochdale District Labour Party Secretary, telephone Rochdale 74303 or Barry Haslam, telephone Rochdale 357242.

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