'83 What happenec to the left-wing campaign!

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Ernie Roberts, Jo Richardson and Joan Maynard were there, and Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner sent apologies; Nigel Williamson was there, from Tribune, Ken Livingstone and Dave Wetzel, from the GLC; Peter Tatchell from Bermondsey; and a number of comrades from London Labour Briefing and the left wing of the Campaign for Labour The plan was the SLV would provide an alternative voice for the Left - to make sure the radical policies passed by Labour conference were put across loudly, clearly, and vigorously in the election campaign.

But come election time - it didn't happen. What the SLV achieved was far less than what had seemed possible on March 7.

Why? What went wrong? Where did we fail? What are the lessons for To explore these questions, Martin Thomas from Socialist Organiser spoke to John Bloxam, a member of the SLV steering committee, former national organiser of the Rank and File Mobilising Committee for Labour Democracy, and secretary of the Socialist Organiser Alliance; Andy Harris, joint secretary of SLV and a GLC councillor; and Rachel Lever, a member of the SLV steering committee and of the London Labour Party Francis Prideaux WHAT gains for Party democracy from this year's round of Union Conferences? Less than might have been if the general election had been earlier for later).

The ASTMS Conference marked three major gains in the area of positive discrimination, supporting (despite platform opposition) the mandatory inclusion of at least one woman on every parliamentary shortlist, the right of the Women's Conference to elect without male assistance. the (so-called) 'women's section' on the Party's NEC.

These demands will not be won within the Party as a whole without more support from the very largest unions (TGWU, AUEW, GMBATU, and USDAW - only NUPE of the big five is so far in favour), but the pressure from women members is growing all the time. One of the strongest • speeches at ASTMS was from a woman who said she had been against positive discrimination for over 20 years and was only now convinced of its real necessity.

A second major area of debate at Brighton should centre around the democratisation of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Finally, on the central question concerning the rights of pressure groups within the Party, the only real change of position (prior to the TGWU Conference) involves the NUR. Their AGM admittedly failed to demand the positive reinstatement of the Militant 5 - but they overwhelmingly threw out an amendment supporting the NEC's attacks on the comrades who support that Tendency.

The NUR's uneasy search for some kind of 'status quo' on witch-hunts could find a number of adherents from other unions - though it must be said that there is no evidence at all that the current majority of the Party NEC are satisfied with the only five scalps which they have so far collected.

In all three policy areas the Bright fil be er demons y enhanced by the maximum submission of appropriate Conference amendments. Suggested drafts will shortly be available from: Women's Action Committee, 39 Caldervale Road, London SW4 (01-622 3983); Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, 10 Park Drive, London NW11 (01-458 1501); Labour Against the Witch-hunt, 11 Wilderton Road, London N16 (01-802 1709).

Monthly paper: new issue now out, 10p ›ntact Class Fighter at 21 ON March 7 'Socialists for a enthusiastic meeting in London.

Party Democracy.:

organising the Left now?' Executive.

too little, JB: If all the people who came to the first meeting had continued to work for the SLV, it would have been OK. But they didn't.

MT: Why did the Left drift away from the SLV? I think the Labour right wing effectively scuppered the SLV by putting most of the conference policy in the manifesto and then not campaigning for it.

Once the campaign document and the manifesto were out, most of the Left had a policy of keeping their heads down so that the right wing would be the ones who stepped out of line. The SLV was left high and dry.

RL: All the SLV was doing was producing slightly better leaflets than came out of Walworth Rd -or sometimes slightly worse ones!

I disagree with the emphasis put by most of the Left on the argument that the leadership didn't have their heart in it. They have never had their heart in it. It Victory' was set up was the old method of never doing anything boldly, the methof appeasement. Whenever someone says boo, you run.

And that went on locally, too. For example, in Islington: there was a fuss about the council, so we weren't even supposed to mention that Chris Smith [the Labour candidate in Islington South | was _councillor. Someone said the words gay centre, and then we weren't supposed to mention that either...

JB: There were two approaches in the SLV: one to see it just as a ginger group to get the best manifesto possible, the other to see it more as an outward looking campaign. Those who saw it as a ginger group won out - mostly by inertia.

Given the nature of the manifesto, was it inevitable that everyone would lapse into defeatism? I don't think it was.

But the problem is that as soon as the manifesto came out, a lot of the most influential people on the Left backed off and started saying it was the best manifesto since 1945, and so on.

RL: There's more than that. The SLV set itself the task of organising an enormous campaign which it didn't have the apparatus for.

JB: But the apparatus of the Rank and File Mobilising Committee was nil, and that organised a big campaign.

RL: You had an alliance of organisations which could be relied on. And you and Jon Lansman were working on it full-time over a period of months.

This time, it was a matter of weeks, and no-one was putting the work in.

JB: I thought the argument about the nature of the SLV - ginger group or a genuine campaign -could best be sorted out in practice by going ahead and doing things. I underestimated the extent to which inertia could prevent that happening.

The SLV could have made much more impact given a few very simple things like, for example, publicity in Tribune, It didn't get those things. It was labelled very carly on as something for the far left.

RI:: The point is that you've got

LUTSI

to have a very clear and simple political line; whole organisations committed to it, like with the Rank and File Mobilising Committee; and a sense that these are the here-and-now issues.

The following year, the RFMC alliance would have fallen apart completely if it were not for the Deputy Leadership campaign. And then after that the rout began.

JB: The crucial element missing in the SLV was the group around Benn and the new Tribune.

It wasn't the organisations as such that were crucial to the Rank and File Mobilising Committee. The LCC. and the ILP weren't able to stop the Benn Campaign Committee. Their attitude only became effective when the Bennites were pulled in the LCC direction, away from high-profile organising.

With the SLV, not even the Campaign Group of MPs would support it. They were not prepared to organise a rank and file campaign that might be seen as divisive. Perhaps there was also an element of anti-Trotskyism.

MT: I think John is right about the crucial role of the Bennites. But there's more to it.

The play-safe attitude during the election campaign did not just come from a few leaders on the Left. It ran right through the Labour Left, down to rank and file level. As Rachel said, we had it in Islington.

It reflects fundamental problems of the politics of the Labour Left. And given that the political problems with the broad Left should have been predictable, did we on the far left do the best that could have been done?

The SLV was more or less based on the assumption that the manifesto would be in glaring contradiction with Labour conference policy. That's why the right wing were able to scupper it. Shouldn't we have allowed for other possibilities?

The SLV wasn't only weak compared to the RFMC; it didn't even manage to do as much as the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory in 1979. I think perhaps one of the problems is that we were too inward-looking.

We tended to take our point of reference too much from conference policy, and not enough from what was needed in terms of the relations between local Labour Partics and voters. Instead of measuring campaign activity in terms of the outside world, we tended to mcasure it too much in an inward-looking way, against conference policy.

But the fact is that it was possible to run the most dull, anaemic campaigns while remaining entirely in line with conference policy. RL: Yes: stodgy, turgid, defensive ... No-one envisaged that what would happen would be an election campaign formally on conference policies, but with none of the combativity needed to carry it through.

JB: But all this was part of the debate inside the SLV. Socialist Organiser did argue for an 'AntiTory League' concept to mobilise that combativity. That idea was there from the beginning. In hindsight we didn't push it hard enough.

I wouldn't put the Bennites and the rank and file on the same level. There is a feeling for unity in the Party which cuts against a fight in situations like the election. You have to take that into account.

But couldn't the reluctance of the Left to go out and fight have been changed if the leading Bennites had taken a different line? I would say yes.

RL: Local CLP campaigns had a very small effect compared to what was in the newspapers and on TV. The SLV. was obviously cut off from making any impact in that sphere unless someone like Benn was willing to say that he was going to go out and run an alternative election campaign. Unless you had prominent people prepared to do that, all the SLV could do was a few leaflets.

We needed a major section of the Party prepared to campaign on an alternative basis. But you would have to be on the verge of a split to do that.

There would have been all sorts of accusations, and they couldn't have stood up to it.

Politically the Bennites just couldn't carry through such a campaign.

JB: Yes. It would have been difficult for that to happen. I don't think it was unimaginable. Some people would have said Benn's Deputy Leader campaign was unimaginable.

It was unlikely - but that shouldn't stop us saying what was needed,' and pointing out where MHN HARRIS RL: What I want to know is what we do now.

AH: We've got to hard left alliance.

RL: I don't think there's a swell towards the Left. A lot of people in the CLPs are convinced that Kinnock is the solution - that we've got to pull towards the centre and drop difficult policies.

JB: That mood can be beaten if' the Bennites mobilise. The problem is that they can't be relied on. An important section of the Bennite Left was against running anyone against Kinnock for leader.

RL: What I want to know is why Joan Maynard and Dennis Skinner were not seen as credible candidates. They were not seen as credible candidates because they didn't have ministerial experience. Because the position is supposed to be not a leader of the Party in battle, but a potential Prime Minister.

People had been saying that we've got to rebuild the labour movement, and fight the Tories outside Parliament - and they didn't take themselves seriously.

It's a question of different conceptions of politics -combat party, or a foreman of capitalism. Why was it unthinkable for Benn to run an independent campaign? Why was it unthinkable to run Maynard and Skinner for the Labour Party leadership? Because their conception of politics is still parliamentary and ministerial.

They can resist pressures when they think they might win. But to run a campaign against pressures for propaganda and to fly the flag is another conception altogether.

Stop the