Vast public ignorance

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The left's struggle for power went only half way Colin Ellison, Labour candidate in Halesowen. and Stourbridge The result: we got hammered. The next task is to win back the popular vote. How we do it, I don't know. Things are going to get much rougher in the next four years. So any policies we can propose will look less practical to the know-nothing voters.

We lost votes because most of the working-class voters in this area didn't believe that we should get rid of nuclear weapons, and they didn't believe we could reduce: unemployment by two million. We're up against a vast pool of public ignorance. If you talk to people about things like Keynesian economics, they just don't understand.

People learn by two things -rational argument and hard experience. We've got to provide the rational argument, and the Tories are going to provide the hard experience.

We can't rely on the trade unions. The only way we can beat the Tories is through hard organisation.

Martin Willis, candidate for Birmingham Hall Green The reason why we lost it was that although people didn't have a lot of time for Thatcher's government, and although they generally thought the policies we were putting forward were likely to be more successful, they didn't trust the Labour Party to put them into action.

That was a consequence that we've spent 2½* years talking out our internal difficulties. That was necessary to do, but it didn't put out a strong picture to the public.

During the campaign, too, I don't think our policies were presented as clearly as they should have been.

Now, obviously, there's the leadership question. Iso I think we've got to look at certain areas of policy which need closer argument. I want us to remain committed to unilateralism, but we've got to be much more specific about what we are intending to do on conventional defence.

I hope that the Labour Party, and other socialist parties, will play a major role in non-violent resistance to the introduction of Cruise missiles at Greenham Common over the next few months. That'Il be a crucial test. Graham editor, Briefing Bash, political London We lost the election because the Labour Party lacked any credibility at all when its leaders were attacking the manifesto on which the election was fought. We had the worst of both worlds: a manifesto which, for all its weaknesses and limitations, went beyond and outside of consensus politics, but which lacked any credibility at all because the leaders were attacking it.

We're left in a very, very difficult position. I think the central question we now face - and we've faced it before as well -is the struggle for the machinery of the Labour Party and the unions. The central question is the crisis of leadership.

We're in a contradiction, because we're left leaderless in the Parliamentary arena with Benn's defeat in Bristol. What we should do in the leadership election is this. We start from saying that the constituency left and the trade union left can have no confidence in Kinnock. In a final baliot we may be forced to put our cross against his name against Hattersley or Shore. But to start off with a vote of confidence in him would be a disaster.

It's absolutely vital that the hard left comes up with an independent campaign and independent candidates. Probably that will not be more than a token, for the moment, and not a struggle for power out it nonetheless lays the basis for such a struggle tomorrow.

Finally, I think we have to say two things. We failed because the left's struggle for power within the Labour Party only went halfway. It was very good at constituency level, but it was never brought into the trade unions. That's why Benn failed to win the Deputy Leadership, that's why we lost the election, and that's why the left is in a relatively weak position today.

within the hard left to unify our common struggle. If we don't get this off the ground soon, we're going to be in difficulties. o that end, London Briefing is coordinating an initiative in calling for the Briefing groups to meet again in County Hall on July 3 to see if we can get some structures in which to unify sections of the hard left and the revolutionary left at a national level. I hope we can make some progress.

Dave Edwards, Labour candidate for Coventry South West The ruling class brought the SDP on the scene in order to keep their power base. We've got' sweep them out of the way. They have brought this third party in against the ádvance of the socialists in the Labour Party. We've got to tackle the SDP, expose them like we expose the Tories.

I think the national leadership could have run a harder campaign, a more political campaign.

My own Constituency Labour Party has come out of very healthy. We have a prospect of recruiting many members and building a mass party. That's the way to beat the Tories and the SDP.

On the trade union front it's going to be a very difficult four years. We're going to face legislation after legislation. I think that the unions should withdraw from bodies like the NEDC. If the Tory government announces fierce anti-union laws, they should have nothing to do with the state at all - nothing to do with ruling-class politics.

I've got a faith in the working class that they can rise above attacks by the ruling class - but they need a mass party to do it. Sunday County SE1. NEC), and one is itself a constitutional amendment to Clause IX. There are three further draft texts - on PLP democracy, on nationalising the 25 top companies and on the general principle of positive discrimination.

The Women's Action Committee (WAC) propose five additional resolutions which make specific demands for women in the Party. Three were raised at Blackpool last year but have not yet succeeded. The others seek to give to the women's organisation and conference the official status and constitution which they still so conspicuously lack.

Draft texts are available from CLPD, 10 Park Drive, London NW11 (tel. 01-458 1501) and WAC, 39 Calderdale Road, London SW4 (tel. 01-622 3983).

CLPD is also seeking support for those declared candidates for Leader and Deputy Leader -Eric Heffer and Michael Meacher respectively - who clearly have the best record on Party democracy issues. Please note that your CLP's nominations will be ruled out of order unless they are accompanied by the signed consent of your nominees. The now no longer be Michael Meacher but committed unilateralist Albert Booth.

It remains essential for all seven of the CLPs' representatives on the NEC to vote solidly against the witch-hunt. Whether or not Neil Kinnock becomes leader, it is imperative that the job of replacing him with Norman Atkinson is now completed following the good groundwork begun last year.

Allaun, Atkinson, BenD, Heffer, Richardson, Skinner and Wise are the strongest team to win. Diversionary candidates should therefore be discouraged.

BRIEFING National meeting Briefing groups July 3, 11.30am, Hall, London

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ASTRONAUT, DO YOU THINK WHO WILL MAKE THE Socialist Organiser no.137

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Flowing from that, I think there's now got to be structures

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