After Labour's Brighton conference

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Suddenly, last week, it seemed as if all the tortured debate about why Labour's vote has declined had found a simple answer. Elect a new, photogenic leader; drown thorny political issues in a soup of compromise; and Labour's opinion poll standing will rise to just 3 per cent behind the Tories!

But even the opinion polls showed how shallow this success is. A big majority in the opinion polls finds Margaret Thaicher personally unsympathetic; a big majority also considers her the best prime minister on offer. People are convinced, and rightly so, of the need for urastic remedies: if Labour continues to offer sops and fudged phrases, then the Tories will stay on top.

And it, through some Tory fiasco, sops and fudged phrasm should win Labour an election, even then a Labour government based on such phrases could not possibly do anything like what the labour movement needs to do. In the meantime, the next general election is some four years away, and the Tories need to be fought now. The soup of compromise will For serious socialists, then, the Brighton Labour Party conference was not a new dawn, but a setback. How serious a setback? John O'Mahony examines the balance sheet. what has happened. First, the unilaterally, changing items of negative side of the balance Party policy long thought to be sheet. sacred, on the EEC for example.

• Neil Kinnock has been elec- Who supported the expulsion of ted leader by 71% of the elector- the Militant editorial board. not nourish any fight back.

A CENTRE-right coalition now has control of the Labour Party.

After the Blackpool Labour Party conference of 1980, we wrote in Socialist Organiser that there had been 'half a revolution' in the Labour Party.

Was it the counter-revolution that took place at Brighton? Is it now complete?

Not entirely. Let us itemise Ence 1: al college vote - and 91.5% of the Constituency Labour Party vote. Roy Hattersley has been elected deputy leader with 67% overall and 51% in the CLPs section.

Because of the early rallying to him by the trade union leaders, the decision was in Kinnock's bag long before the election. And then there was a snowball effect, gathering CLP support around the core of trade union votes.

This support went to a Kinnock who had heon muhlin and и wou puvutiy, auu Who was justly cursed on the Left in 1981 for opposing Tony Benn's campaign for deputy leader. And who does not disguise a desire to change Party policy on unilateral nuclear disarmament and missile bases (in effect, if not in words).

• The Right and Centre have control of the National Executive Committee, whenever they combine against the Left. At Brighton there was some shift to the Left, or Left-Centre, on the NEC: but there is certainly a solid Kinnock/Hattersley majority on the committee.

• The expulsion of the five Militant editorial board members has been endorsed by Conference, by over 5 million votes to about 1.6 million, though with some 80% of the CLPs voting against expulsion.

The Labour Party's general secretary, 'Morning Star leftist' Jim Mortimer, says he makes no undertaking that there will not be further expulsions.

• There was a distinct mood at conference of support for the new leadership, and a 'passion for unity' — a mood to forget the past and concentrate on fighting the Tories.

This mood was evident at the 1981 and 1982 conferences, too. This year it was very powerful.

The message that Reg Race pounded out on last week's front page of Socialist Organiser -'Not Our Dream' - was distinctly net the view of most conference elegates.

• The Left candidate for Labour Party leader, Eric Heffer, did badly, with 6 per cent of the vote. Michael Meacher for deputy did far better (28%) - but he fudged and hedged and finally cast his leadership vote for Kinnock against Heffer.

Heffer was of course weighed down from the start by the Party's awareness that he had no chance of winning.

• The new leadership is the first full leadership to come out of the electoral college, and thus has tremendous authority.

• Election victory is being erected as the goal to which everything must be sacrificed, including the goals that make victory meaningful.

There is a conscious, and so far partly successful, move in the Labour Party to replace politics and concern for politics by personalities. The personality of Kinnock land his wife is being tooted as the answer. The perspecare is one of political beaury contests - in response to the most ideological and hard.

edged Tory government in a century!

Like the role played in the deputy leadership election by non-active members of the Labour Party who voted Hattersley in constituency postal ballots, this is a marked (though as yet limited) shift towards the Americanisation of British politics and the depoliticisation of the Labour Party.

• The Left was divided, in disarray without an anguide ad in the filed.

Prominent leftists, including Michael Meacher himseli, defected en masse to join Kinnock's victory march. We failed to organise the sort of campaign for Heffer that could have swung the CLPs behind him. Tony Benn did not come out for Heffer unti the last minute, when it counted for little and could change nothing.

• The failures of Labour's 'local government Left' have dampened and partly discredited the whole Left. This was predictable - and we predicted it, and fell out with those who started London Labour Briefing and Labour Herald over it. But it is now a fact to be reckoned with.

• The union block vote was more solidly and efficiently delivered for Labour's new centre-right alliance than ever before. Not a single union. voted for Heffer. Only 11.8% of the union votes went to Michael Meacher.

To be consolidated and given real bite, the democratic changes in the Labour Party needed to be followed up by reform within the unions. That has not happened. Conservative union offcialdom is still very much in the saddle.

• The revolutionary Left is not united, and its major forces are still outside the struggle in the political wing of the labour movement.

Socialist Worker responded to Brighton by repeating once again its usual message: turn away from general political concerns, and as "an alternative" look to "wherever workers struggle for better wages and conditions"

Abandon politics

In other words: abandon politics, and because the centre-right have control, leave them in control. Such abstention also assists the growth of neo-Stalinism in the ideological vacuum on the Lalour Left.

Militant was always, now, a self-concerned sect, internal to the Labour Party but incapable of interacting with the broader Left - of learning from it and it would have much to learn) or teaching it.

The revolutionary Marxist Left, whether defined in its narrowest sense as Socialist Organiser and its periphery or in a broader sense, has never been anywhere near having hegemony on politics or perspectives in the Left. Indeed, in our opposition to the narrow British nationalism of the common anti-EEC wisdom of the Left, to protectionism and to the Alternative Economic Strategy which rests on protectionism, we have been a small lone voice.

Positive side

But there is also a positive side to the balance sheet.

• Unity against the Tories is a double-edged weapon. If Kinnock doesn't deliver, then he will be called to account.

Joan Maynard's warning that Kinnock can be replaced next year sounds at present like wish. ful thinking. But it reflects something important in the mood of the Labour Party.

There is support for Kinnock _ but not unconditional support. After the leadership election results were announced, and after Kinnock's speech to the Tribune fringe meeting, attempts to get a standing ovation for him brought only a handful of people to their feet.

The election of Kinnock is not quite as decisive as it may seem. He is a left' by tradition and knows how to fake. He had big union backing and was the favourite from the beginning.

Within what appeared to be the 'realistic' options, the farty voted for the left' What if Tony Benn had stood? He would probably have beaten Kinnock, though Hattersley would probably have won on the final ballot.

It is, of course, a measure of the weakness and immaturity of the Left land unfair and unjust to Eric Heffer) that personalities matter so much.

In the deputy leadership, it was a factor that Meacher is not Benn. People probably also felt war-weary, and pressured by the threat from the Right of another split.

• Jim Mortimer gave no "undertakings', but so far the purge is a token one. The Right/ Centre coalition have to choose between 'unity' and continuing the witch-hunt and purge. If they try to step up the purge there will be widespread resistance, and they know it.

• They are still relying on double-talk and fudge to water down the Party's commitment to unilateralism. Kinnock failed to persuade the TGWU to remit its motion reaffirming the policy.

There will have to be a full-scale fight between the new leadership and the Party before they can ditch unilateralism - and they do not feel strong enough for that.

They rely, of course, on diluting the policy - but we can resist that.

• The Centre/Right have also been forced to leave mandatory reselection alone. It is unlikely that they can scrap it before the new round of reselections starts in December 1984. The Left in the CLPs should make reselection work, by dismissing the right wing and the dead wood.

• Dennis Healey has opined that Kinnock and Hattersley can dominate the executive if they want to. Perhaps. But there are limits. This is not the executive for a major purge or a political clean sweep. This is a fudge executive - the embodiment of the 'faking culture' which Labour talks left and acte 'realistic'.

Authority

• The new leadership has tremendous authority - and much is expected of it. The opinion polls — now showing Labour at 39%, only just behind the Tories at 42% and way ahead of the Alliance at 18% - are a boost.

But will this leadership fight the Tories? Thatcher's secret manifesto is being unveiled piecemeal. Working class resistance will develop, at whatever tempo.

To the extent that the new Labour leadership leads a fightback, that will bring a new militant spirit into the labour movement and undermine the position of Kinnock and Hattersley for the future. To the extent that they obstruct the fight back, illusions in them as effective anti-Tory leaders will be dispelled.

People have talked about "1963 all over again" - referring to the year when Harold Wilson, a 1950s Bevanite leftist, succeeded Hugh Gaitskel and finally, by faking and bluffing, put an end to a long period of left-right disputes.

The comparison sheds some. light. But this is 1983. The

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Socia st Oranna • square one?

Finally, the serious Left must ity' of the Communist League, ish capitalist system is in B. The Tory offensive is ase, and speeding up. The pness of the crisis will by and brutally strip away bility for any reformist rings that Kinnock and his i dream up (according to one it, the division of labour is that Hattersley will be pnsible for policy developI', and Kinnock for packagInd selling the policies!) Innock/Hattersley's instinct ght when it tells them to go ¡ersonalities and avoid disB on policy. But that will take them so far - and not far at that. capitalism were now exling, and Britain could look ard to relative prosperity, i it is most likely that Kini and Hattersley could conlate their control. A new Librium would be establishn the Party, co-opting and ering the new constitutional B. The serious Left could be ginalised, as for decades it Honeymoon t that is not the situation. ere will be a honeymoon d, perhaps of some length. major resistance to Kin'a inevitable drive to the tis a certainty. min, the new close alliance zen the Parliamentary leadad the trade union bosses reen identified as a recreaif the ancien regime of the '40s, and '50s. This is not Hy true, either. • big unions are not monoally right wing. Moss Ev• not Deakin, and Arthur I is not Will Lawther. l is still something of a leftmovement in certain , the PODU, for example. • indications are that the Leadership will balance, and fake. It will probably bai tactics, slicing, at the piece at a time, doing tas done in Manchester i areas. But if it tries to ware forthrightly against - * mill undermine its Spain. the future hinges he Left, aad the rarious idio the Lat. will do. opposition we faced, nor even the tremendous reserve social strength (that of the influence of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement) that they have to fall back on.

It was not only that the Labour Party is inseparable from the uinions, and that the organised Left was weak in the unions.

Primary and central was the state of the Left. The pay-off now is the crystallisation of a neo-Left Eurocommunist current behind Kinnock.

Professor Eric Hobsbawm, a long time Communist Party member, lectured to a fringe meeting at Brighton, chaired by Neil Kinnock, on the need to face the choice between coalition with the Alliance or permanent opposition. Kinnock sat nodding throughout, and making notes like a diligent pupil.

The stench of Popular Frontism is in the air. With the aid of people like Charles Clarke -a few years ago the architect of a Labour/Communist Party/Liberal alliance in the National Union of Students, and now an adviser to Kinnock -the centre/right coalition is grouping around itself a political formation capable of weaving fears, nostalgia, hatred of Thatcherism, and even bits of Marxism misappropriated from Antonio Gramsci, into what may become a coherent and self-respecting rationale for Popular Front politics - a 'historic compromise' with the SDP.

However, it is not one-way traffic on the Left. Many will be horrified by the implications of what Kinnock seems to be saying and Hobsbawm definitely is saying. The process of sifting out and educating the Left is still going on.

Marxism Today Tony Benn, in fact, got to the heart of what it is that separates the serious Left from Kinnock, Hobsbaw, and 'Marzism Today'. in an interview with Andrew Murray of the Morning Star.

"Owen, Steel and Mrs Thatcher all have their main interest as the destruction of Socialism. trade unionism and the Labour Benn says that large sections of the labour movement are on • To take socialism off the agenda". Exactly. People like Hobsbawm have abandoned the idea of socialism as something distinct from capitalism, as a radical transformation society.

They long ago gave up such notions as "millennarian' and utopian. In large part they did so in response to the experience of Stalinism in the USSR. For sentimental reasons they still call themselves Communists, but they are to the right of the average Labour Party leftist. They are demoralised reformists.

The Left has much to learn from Eric Hobsbawm's academic work as a historian, especially perhaps from his writings about 'primitive rebels' and early labour movement sects. But as political guides for the present day, he and his co-thinkers are poison to the labour movement.

Neo-Stalinism

Next month the two publiclywarring factions of the Communist Party meet in congress, and may split. If they do, the Kinnockites will be reinforced.

But quite aside from the Communist Party itself, a number of strands of Stalinism and neo-Stalinism already exist, and are growing powerful, on the Labour Left. The ideologies of British nationalism, protectionism, and bureaucratic statist reform, create good conditions for them to grow. For these are their policies.

Counter-revolution? Yes, in that the centre/right alliance has control of the Party. But that is still a matter of formalities. What they can do is limited. Much is still undecided.

The Financial Times political correspondent, Margaret van Hattem, wrote a perceptive article on the eve of the Labour Party conference.

...In terms of organisation, the Left has collapsed. The progress made in previous years on limited, narrowly-defined goals, such as mandatory reselection of MPa and the establishment of the electoral college, has not carried forward into a more comprehensive strategy...

But the leadership "outcome Turn to workplace branches - a main theme of Socialist Organiser's campaign work at Brighton.

Right; but the distinction is becoming increasingly blurred. They may identify with different traditions in the Party's history, but on most political areas they have a lot in common...

"The Party is only beginning to come to terms with its election defeat. In doing so it will have, over the coming months, to question its organisation, its policies, its class allegiances, its relationship with the union movement, the scope and nature of its membership - everything that makes it what it is.

•That there will be bitter struggles is certain... "9 This is the counter-revolution that dares not define itself yet.

So what must the Left do?

We must study the history of the last four years. We must refuse to run scared before Thatcher, or to let the pressure of the Tory offensive redraw the parameters within which social policy is discussed in the labour movement. We must continue the fight to remake the labour movement, so that we have an alternative to the Tories, and also to everything that the Tories stand for.

We must refuse to accept that there is a choice between turning outwards to fight the Tories, ana continuing to discuss and clarify the Party.

The Tories need to be fought now - by class struggle, not by pronouncements of what Kinnock will do on election day four years from now.

We must reject the 'historic compromise' which Kinnock may be contemplating with social Toryism, represented by the SDP and the Liberals. We must not 'take socialism off the agenda' - whether for a deal with the SDP/Liberal Alliance or in the vain hope of bringing back Labour's successful reformist yesterdays.

Socialism is the answer and the guideline for a fight back against the Tories now, and must be the goal of the labour movement.

On that basis we can turn the Labour Party outwards, build the membership, draw it into the class struggle at every level, and develop workplace branches.

We must fight the witchhunt. Kinnock and Hattersley officials, wielding their block The struggle to remake the votes, were the decisive force labour movement, to prepare it behind Kinnock's triumph. But to overthrow capitalism, will they are not the sum total of the take longer than in the heads days of 1980 there was reason to The newly triumphant centre- hope it would. right can be challenged by a This should neither surprise flanking attack, through the nor dishearten us. Many layers rank and file of the trade unions. of reformist hopes and deluDemands for democratic reform sions, of political prejudices, must be taken into the unions. confusions, and ingrained natLabour Party workplace branch- ionalist wrong-headedness, es can help to assemble the left- have to be worked through by a wing forces for this fight. vast movement of women and To the extent that the direct men who have no political unifyindustrial class struggle revives, ing centre and who move all the and the working class succeeds time under the hostile fire of our in shaking off the stunning first class enemies and their agents, impact of the slump since 1979, supporters and allies within the new forces will be brought into labour movement. this struggle in the unions. Is it any wonder that we The Left must face the fact experience setbacks and backthat for now Kinnock has a great slidings? deal of support. We must find There is no serious alternative ways to talk to and convince the to continuing the fight for socialactivists who support Kinnock. ism within the existing labour When Kinnock talks about mob- movement, both industrial and ilising against the health service political wings. All proportions cuts, for example, we must guarded land with a shorter demand that he puts his words time-scale), what Karl Marx into practice. said to impatient comrades after At the same time we must the defeat of the 1848 Revolution take. up the ideological fight in Europe is relevant to OUT within the Left. The Left prob- situation now: ably faces a period of regroup- 66 ...The materialist standpoint ment and realignment. Why of the [Communist Manifesto have organisations like the Lab- has given way to idealism. The our Coordinating Committee revolution is seen not as the progone over to the centre-right? duct of realities of the situation. The lessons must be discussed but as the result of an efort of and analysed. will.

We must take up the argu- Whereas we say to the workments against nationalism, edu- ers: you have 15, 20, 50 years of cate the movement about Stalin- civil war to go through in order ism lin all its varieties and to alter the situation and to phases), and build a Marxist, train yourselves for the exerclass-struggle, internationalist cise of power, it is said: we must left wing of the Labour Party take power at once, or else we around the Socialist Organiser may as well take to our beds... Alliance. (From the minutes of the 'Meeting of the Central Authorsteady itself for a long haul. September 15 1850).

LOOK.

UP IN THẺ SKX.

NO... IT'S NEIL KINNOCK!!

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ITS A BIRDI IT'S A PLANED