Labour leaders' scheme for unity with employers "PARTNERS"IN CRIME?

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LABOUR PARTY and trade union leaders are trying to commit us to a re-run of the 1974-9 Labour government.

The TUC-Labour Party liaison committee document, Partners in Rebuilding Britain', is due to be published at Easter. Under the title of the National Economic Assessment, it promises, effectively, a system of TUC-policed incomes policy.

Each spring there would be an agreed statement on the framework within which decisions will be made on investment, prices, employment and pay" . The Labour Party 'campaign document' (on which the Labour election manifesto will be based) states that the National Economic Assessment "will take a view on what changes in costs and prices will be compatible with our economic and social objertives". And the joint secretaries of the ! TUC-LP committee have commented: "The question of incomes. would form an essential part of discussions concerning the national economic assessment... Considerable extra responsibilities would fall on unions...

Amendments rejected There are still a fair few radical promises in the campaign document, and unfortunately some on the Labour left have argued that we should accept it as being as good as we'll get.

At a Labour Coordinating Committee rally in London on March 21, Robin Cook declared that "If the left doesn't campaign for the policies in this document, nobody will"

True enough. The right wing will not campaign for the document's compromises: it regards them only as a first step in its drive to gut Labour's radical policies. But the left's answer should not be to accept the compromises, but to campaign for full Labour conference policies.

The campaign document isn't the end of it. The manifesto will be more diluted still. Then a right-wing Labour government will most likely ignore most of the manifesto.

On incomes policy the campaign document includes a sentence from Tony Benn: "We will not return to the old policies of Government-imposed wage restraint". But a further amendment by Benn to replace the word 'old' by 'any' was lost at the Labour NEC. And an amendment by Dennis Skinner to delete all reference to the National Econot Lai tiol be wa fig! ber fig! TU as the

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The policy commitment to a 3% per year rise in real NHS spending is missing from the campaign document mic Assessment governing incomes was also defeated being supported only by Jo Richardson, Frank Allaun, urence Coates, and Audrey Wise.

This process of trimming the labour movement's aspiran to fit within the administration of capitalism can only challenged by a determined fight, every inch of the y, to hold the leadership to account. That's why the ht for Labour democracy over the last four years has en so important - and why it must be continued, with a ht against the fudges in the campaign document and the IC-Labour Party document.

Tony Benn at the LCC meeting spoke in the same spirit Robin Cook, thus dealing a considerable blow against • left. He also said a good deal in a completely different Irit.

National Union of Students conference, page 2,

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