Discussing a Brighton balance sheet "CLPD remains to pick up WRE the pieces"

Scan page 10

"The kind of unity that the Left will find increasinglv hard live with 1981 ing their politically suicidal only the narrow defeat of Benn, settled, CLPD will still be there but also a sharp turn to the right to pick up the pieces.

ORGANISED!

THIS year's Labour Party con- IS year's Labour Party conference may well be regarded as 'ence may welt be regarded as a fitting end to the latest chapter itting end to the latest chapter in the Labour Left's pathetic the Labour Left's pathetic history. itory.

The much needed party unity The much needed party unity produced at conference was ›duced at conference was uverwhelmingly: welcomed by erwhelmingly: welcomed by the Party. However, it is likely to • Danto Unraan it in lilenl.,t.. be a kind of unity that the left will find increasingly hard to live with. Yet it was the Left which did its best to produce it. Ultraleft cretinism and traditional Labour Left opportunism combined to make the worst out of what, admittedly, was a difficult jub.

The fact is that conference, out of understandable and justified desire for party unity agreed:

*To give the lunatic right its pound of Left fles.1;

*To give the NEC carte blanche to cut some more off the joint;

*To legitimise expulsions of members for selling a particular socialist newspaper at Party meetings;

*To reject even moderate and, from the point of view of rebuilding the Party, much needed reforms, such as the democratisation of the women's organisation and that of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Expectations

Contrary to the Left's great expectations the composition of the NEC has not changed much. The strength of what passes for the "hard left" (on the NEC) has gone up from eight to nine (or is it ten now?): Those who placed hopes in the increased voting strength of what passes for the "soft left" had their first lesson in the first action of the NEC, when it decided to expel Tariq Ali.

Audrey Wise's place on the NÉC was saved by the last minute withdrawal of the two Militant supporters from the contest (perhaps Militant should be congratulated for showing some symptoms of sanity at last) as well as by a somewhat unusual alliance between the Conference Arrangements Committee and CLPD on upholding the Constitution by not allowing defeated Labour candidates automatically to Needless to say the NEC's Left masterminds recommended that conference should ignore the Constitution. Had their advice been followed not just Audrey Wise but perhaps even Joan Maynard would not have been elected.

From the point of view of the Left there was perhaps a silver lining. This; however, was not Get Name Address Since last month's Labour Party conference in Brighton, we have been inviting Party activists to give us their views of the outcome.

This week's contribution is from VLADIMIR DERER of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy."

There will be a response to this and other contributions next week.

due to the traditional Left's efforts.

A CLPD sponsored resolution demanding the recognition of the principle of positive discrimination in favour of members of the working class, ethnic minorities and women and asking for a working party to be set up tu explore the ways of implementing this principle was remitted with the promise that a working party will be set up.

The resolution might have been carried had the NEC recommended support — a possibility which cannot excluded given the NEC's generally chaotic proceedings during its conference sessions. Unfortunately some of our "very Left" comrades from a London constituency insisted on the inclusion in the composite of a demand that the NEC should produce constitutional amendments for consideration by the 1984 conference, in line with the proposals contained in the resolution.

Not surprisingly the more perceptive members of the NEC's Right quickly seized upon this demand as unrealistic when the NEC deliberated what to recommend. Quite apart from this predictable reaction, to entrust the NEC with producing constitutional amendments on a controversial subject of this kind verges on the inane. No doubt the comrades who thought up SED!

Become a supporter of the Socialist Organiser Alliance - groups are established in most large towns. We ask £1.50 a month minimum (20p unwaged) contribution from supporters.

I want to become a Socialist Organiser supporter/ I want more information.

Send to Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8 8PL.

No: all ti does seem this brilliant idea vere aware.

Kumar, lued were awaren how lab Mikardo's undertaking of 1977 that "wershall put down at the next year's Annual Conference all the amendments to:

the constitution necessary provide automatic re-selection in the way and in the sense that the sponsors of those 60-odd resolutions want" was miraculously transformed into 'the windruu comprunist 0I 1910. Miledo amnamian" of 1070 It only goes to show that our highly principled ultra-left Bourbons have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing.

The Left's second consolation •prize was the massive defeat of the two resolutions which under the pretext of introducing ¡greater democracy spught «to destroy the electoral college by ostensibly giving us what. we already have, namely "one member one vote"

Dupes

Unfortunately a third resolution containing the same proposals was saved by the NEC by request for remission. No doubt friends of the PLP supremacy and their dupes will do their best by trying to keep these proposals alive. Given the NEC's present composition they have a good chance of succeeding.

The negative pleasure at the temporary setback to the attempt to undermine the electoral college as an instrument of accountability, will not be shared by the whole Left. Recent debates on 'one member one vote" reveal that there are many on both extremes of the Left spectrum who have forgotten that we live in a class society in which people are conditioned to see reality as 'in a camera obscura" and that the battle for socialism will not be won by rational argument alone.

Were the conference results inevitable? Only in the sense that even had the Left at last "seen the light" after the 1983 election it would already have been too late to stop the general drift to the Right. Something could have been achieved had the Heffer campaign received more than lukewarm support even from those who rallied behind the only credible leadership candidate of the Left. Most of the Labour Party members who opted for Kinnock were unaware of his voting record on the NEC. Those who were involved in the much acclaimed wider consultation in the leadership contest cast their vote without having seen any election literature which contained criticism of the candidates (apart from the Left friendly national press). But this, of course, is the very situation the not-so-naive advocates of "one member one vote" seek to create.

was the weekly Left press it helpful (admitte lly it not reach many L members). Some e ditors to have believed that deciaration of support must be accompanied by a long list of Heffer's real or alleged shortcumings so as to ensure that only minimum enthusiasm for his candidature would be generated.

Tribune, which not so long ago criticised CLPD "fron the Left" • published details of Kinnock's record in full only in September. By this time most CLPs have consulted their members' views.

Having waited until five minutes to twelve before declaring their support for Heffer, the clock had nut stopped striking midnight before the Tribune Jacobins jumped on the Kinnock-Hattersley bandwagon.

The Heffer campaign, instead of becoming a rallying point for organising the forces of the Left merely revealed the Left's total fragmentation and marginalisation.

Failure

A more substantial reason for the Left's inability to prevent the rise to dominance of the Right was its misjudgment of the situation after Labour's defeat in the There was a failure to realise that the objective conditions for the Left's advance are more favourable when there is a Labour government and less favourable when the Party is in opposition. In opposition, the priorities of the Party are dictated by the overriding need to get rid of the Tory government. Party unity is one of the essential conditions which must be met if the Party is to present a credible alternative.

Unity

Unity at almost any cost becomes the priority for the majority of Party members, and above all of the Party's industrial wing. Furthermore, in opposition commitments to policies cannot be tested by reference to deeds, but only to words.

The fact that the Left in opposition faces a different situation than under a Labour government was brutally brought home at this year's conference. In 1979 it was disguised.

Firstly because a defeat of a Labour government is generally followed by an inquest, this temporarily tends to favour the Left. Secondly, because seven years of work by CLPD had made mandatory re-selection, and, to a lesser extent, the clectoral college, acceptable to the majority of Party members, both individual and affiliated.

Thirdly, there was the fact that Callaghan had overruled the NEC over the manifesto. After Labour's defeat, the NEC revenged itself by reopening the question of the electoral college, by seeking to vest the control of the manifesto solely in the hands of the NEC, and, more reluctantly, by allowing the question of mandatory reselection to be reopened.

Temporarily, a united front between the NEC majority and the rank and file ensured the victory of two constitutional reforms between 1979 and 1981. However, the resistance of the Parliamentary Labour Party led to internal Party tension which produced an image of a deeply divided Party.

Party members, and above all trade unionists, were fearful of what the consequences would be for the Party's electoral prospects. It was then that the Left committed its first major blunder.

Whereas CLPD had always viewed the electoral college as an instrument for making the Party leadership accountable to annual elections in the same way as the Treasurer and other members of the NEC, the Left saw it primarily as a way of getting its candidate elected. Hence, in the deputy leader contest the Left opted for a 'presidential-style' campaign. Public displays of disunity, mercilessly exploited by the media, alienated the trade union rank and file. The Party's stock with the public fell, and Labour supporters started blaming it on those who dreamt up constitutional reforms. Above all, the Left's deputy leader candidate was blamed.

The 1981 conference saw not NATIONAL COUNCIL 12.00 Satuday Novembe • 26 at Camden Town Hall, Euston Deadline for resolutions LAW Secretariat: Friday AFFILIATE NOW!

LAW is the only campaign against based on and controlled by CLPs Affiliation fees:

CLPs and trade union LP branches Other LP organisation individuals Contact: The Secretary, London N16 by the NEC. Thirsting for revenge the NEC initiated an 'inquiry' into Militant, disqualified properly selected Parliamentary candidates, and debarred from Party membership individuals who would have normally been accepted.

It was at this stage that the Left committed its second blunder. Still euphoric from the nearvictorious Benn campaign, it chose to answer the right wing offensive with the tactics of confrontation. CLPD's proposals for a defensive strategy which would combine defence of the existing gains with a demand for Party unity on the basis of give and take were dismissed as a 'move to the right' and 'going the Kinnock way.

Lenin

In fact, as Lenin pointed out, revolutionaries who know only how to advance, but not how to carry out a tactical retreat, are poor revolutionaries. In the case of our 'revolutionaries, they had shown themselves capable of neither.

The consequences are with us now.

In conclusion, CLPD has been written off as having fulfilled its role, as having moved to the right, as not understanding the women's: movement and the tasks facing the new Left. In fact, its only fault was that it was unable to prevent its better-organised and more illustrious allies from adoptCourse.

After the dust of defeat has. AND ANNUAL GENERAL indon and nominations for a new November 18 £10

Scan page 11

Socialist Organiser no. 154, November 10 1983 Page id file: oblivious,to Ross's analysis that their Party is in historic decline SOME parts of this book are useful. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 conveniently summarise the personal and financial links between the Tory party and the leading circles of the British capitalist class.

The book, however, is centred round a statistical argument which just does not stand up. The core of it is the graph below, allegedly showing a remorseross long-term decline in the lory vote.

This decline, exclaims Ross, has "enormous structural roots". It is "part of a 137-year party political system in Britain". 'It is scarcely possible to imagine a more clear-cut development.

Grandiose But the statistical evidence is not sufficient to support such grandiose historical developments. In the first place, Ross notes that the electorate in 1983 is socially very different from the electorate in 1846, but comments only that changes in voting rights do not seem to affect the statistical trends. But "trend' connecting percentages of one electorate at one time to percentages of a very different electorate at another time is not a valid statistical law.

Even for the period since 1931 Ross's trend is dubious. Look at the second graph of the Tory vote below. The picture is now, if anything, of a slight rising trend.

Yet the second graph can be got from Ross's figures just by including 1929 and excluding as exceptional 1931 and 1935 -when, following Ramsay MacDonald's defection from the Labour. Party, the Tories stood as _the core of a 'National Government' coalition.

There are plenty of other ways that the figures can be presented to produce a different impression. Simply by altering the scales of the graph, so that the 'percentage of the vote' A RICH TORY is getting richer by charging other rich Tories to shoot one of the world's most endangered species of bird, reveals Catherine Caufield in MARTIN THOMAS reviews "Thatcher and friends: the anatomy of axis started at 0 rather than 33, would change the impression to one of high stability in the Tory vote rather than marked rise or decline.

Or suppose that the Tories win another general election, say in 1987, with over 50% of the vote. Every socialist will regard such a prospect with horror: but it would be a foolish and weak-hearted socialist indeed who tried to convince himself or herself that iron laws of history made such a thing impossible.

A result of that sort, even if it was a one-off freak, would completely destroy Ross's pattern.

This points to a fundamental problem with Ross's very method of procedure. If the 1983 election result was the product of iron laws moving over 137 years of history, then where does the conscious activity of socialists come in?

Gale

Doesn't Ross's approach imply that all the articles written by himself and his comrades in Socialist Action and Socialist Challenge about how Labour should orientate in order to win the 1983 election were so much spitting into the teeth of a gale?

The words of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci are very relevant here: " •.. statistical law can only be employed in political science and practice in so far as the great mass of the population remains essentially passive...

However, the Scottish Office issues licences to shoot geese not to the farmers, but to Lord Muck and his fellow lairds. And the lairds don't hand the licences on to their tenants. Figure 1 Fors percentage of the Ross's graph: a term tendency vote to decline.

"Indeed, in assumption of a as an essential, fa geese.

Not the farmers. The National Farmers Union says shooting for sport is an inefficient way of controlling birds that damage crops.

Not the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, who with the NCC say that licences are frequently violated to make the shooting more "sporting"

But Lord Muck and his fellow lairds support: it and indeed successfully opposed rule changes ending these abuses. At the time of passage of the W&CA, Lord M. made it clear ole since 19.31 clear-cut ong for the 'ory politics the statistical law ¡ally operating Tory 1930- 1940• 1950 1960• 1970 г 1980But 1931 and 1935 were exceptional years: the Tories headed a 'National Government' coalition. Leave out those exceptional years, and include 1929, and the picture looks quite different.

law is not only a scientific error, but becomes a practical error in action; in addition it encouralone.

One eighth of SSSIs had been damaged in 1980 alone, despite their supposed "protection" and all were under theat from agricultural "improvement" roads, tipping and mining.

The NCC asked for an extra £20 million over ten years to defend wildlife habitats, but the government offered only £600,000. Worse, the government was even giving grants for schemes that destroyed wildlife habitats.

Just one of the results of this JOHN HARRIS ages mental laziness and programmatic superficiality.

"It should be observed that political action aims precisely at raising the multitudes out of their passivity; that is, at destroying the laws of the greatest numbers; how then can this be held to be a sociological Mechanical Gramsci was arguing against mechanical variants of Marxism which made the rise of socialism a 'statistical law': but the comment applies equally to Ross's argument.

Of course, for whole "the great mass of the but the NCC must give three months' notice during which time the owners can do as they ploase.

One example from May 1982 was a 6.5 hectare meadow (part of the proposed Ripon Park SSSI) which contained some 90 species of flowering plant, including marsh orchids, and nesting sites for curlews and reed buntings. Six weeks before SSSI status came into force, the farmer ploughed the lot over.

Even previous SSSIs had to be redesignated with this three12420005:

tion" is "essentially passive"

steady rise of the Liberal vote since 1951 seems to have something of the nature of such "statistical law' ', but I'm not sure what the basic clauses are, and I'm none the wiser from Ross's book. (The basic reason he gives for the decline of the Tory vote is the economic decline of British imperialism, though there are refinements in the argument).

Curves

Ross is also not very illuminating as regards what his historical "curves of development" have to tell us about the future. The present party system, he says, is breaking up: "As to what (the replacement) will be, we can only outline its chief features by name: the formation of a 'Gaullist' Tory Party; the creation of the SDP-Liberal 'pro-EEC' Party; and the creation of a reformist Socialist as , opposed to Labour Party.

He does not explain why these should be the trends or even what he means. ('Gaullist' in what sense? What's the difference between 'reformist Socialist' and 'Labour'?) Surely a book claiming "to see the shape of British politics not merely as it has developed over months or years, but over decades and even centuries" should have more to tell us about the future than this.

But if the working class is to have anything worth inheriting, the Labour and conservationist movements are going to have to recognise their common interests and fight now to save what remains of our wildlife.

etnD the

----- pull-quotes -----

AGAINST THE WITCH-HUNT!

the Tory Party' by John Ross (Pluto Press, £2.50)

in some respects at least, and "statistical laws' do operate. The