ORGANISER Gutting reselection?

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THE PRESS is still full of re- Rv Inhn Rlnxam mittees.

MARK Twain once made a joke that reports of his death were 'exaggerated'. Reports of the demise of the British labour movement were shown last week to be exaggeratThe bungling TUC leaders gave the workers they called upon to come out on strike against the government short notice. The call was made on Friday afternoon for action the following Tuesday - the Yet, come Tuesday, and hundreds of thousands of workers stopped work to defend trade union rights at GCHQ Across the country they marched in their thousands and tens of thousands - 40,000 in London, 6000 each in Glasgow and Edinburgh, 2500 in Dundee. Tony Benn spoke to a rally of 2000 in It was a partial and preliminary roll call of our It was a demonstration of its latent power that The slump, with its mass unemployment deliberately made worse by the Tories, has depleted and diminished the strength, combativity and confidence of the working class. The experience of the 1974-9 Wilson-Callaghan Labour government, which rode to power on a great wave of industrial action and then in office sold out the workers who put it in, added to that depression in the labour movement, because it destroyed a dimension of political hope.

While a minority of activists responded after 1979 by trying to change the Labour Party under the slogan, 'Never again a Labour government like the last one!', great numbers of workers lapsed And the Tories seized every chance to put the boot in — again and again. The labour movement which faced this challenge had for over a generation known no struggles except in relatively favourable conditions. It was led by a lot of office-boys playing the roles of leaders Of course, it was inadequate. The unions have been defeated at GCHQ, and it is an extremely important and serious defeat. It opens the door to attacks on the union rights of other workers in the civil service, in armaments factories, and in 'essential services' But we have had many dëfeats in the last 4½ years. This was a defeat in the course of which the movement had begun to fight back. Belatedly, confusedly, inadequately — but with a seriousness not The trade union officials are a distinct layer of the labour movement with material privileges and a distinct outlook: by natufe they are not fighters but bargainers. But sometimes even they have to fight back against attacks from the ruling class which make their situation intolerable and threaten even their type of trade unionism.

After the TUC's criminal sell-out of the NGA last December, the outlook seemed bleak. Now, two months later, the TUC led by Len Murray calls an unlawful strike and commits itself to call a national day of action (with strikes) if anyone at GCHQ is sacked for trade It is not enough; even if it were, we could not rely on them to carry through their promises; we need to organise a rank and file movement independent of all the bureaucrats. Nevertheless this is a shift Now the miners are being pushed into a confrontation, and meanwhile the Tories are shaken by divisions and scandals. In the wake of Tony Benn's election victory at Chesterfield, an opinion poll has The Left must shake off its demoralisation, and prepare for ed, too. Highly exaggerated.

next but one working day. result is tremendously encouraging.

ment itself needed very badly. into greater political passivity.

of labour.

movement will stand for. seen for some time.

Tuesday February 28 showed that millions of workers will fight given a lead. It also showed that the official movement must not be written off.

THE PRESS is still full of reports that Labour's right wing is hell-bent on overturning mandatory reselection at this year's Labour Party conference.

Last week the story was that Kinnock now wants the National Executive Committee to issue 'guidelines' for the forthcoming reselections, to pressurise local Labour Parties into adopting individual membership ballots rather than decisions at meetings.

Such individual ballots, in various forms, were used by a number of Constituency Labour Parties in the recent elections for leader and deputy leader of the Labour Party.

The idea is dear to some of Kinnock's advisers. The cry for individual membership ballots is undoubtedly the right wing's best line of attack. But as an immediate tactic for the right wing the 'guidelines' idea is worthless.

The voting procedure in Constituency Labour Parties for the selection of a parliamentary candidate is, unlike that for leadership or even National Executive Committee elections, laid down in the Labour Party constitution. And NEC 'guidelines' cannot change the constitution.

It would require a constitutional amendment to change the present procedure whereby the candidate is selected by a vote at a General Committee, in secret and by nonmandated delegates.

By

Hattersley's Labour Solidarity cron. dumped But the recent crop of press stories does show that a section of the right wing wants to try to force change.

The core group is a number of MPs associated with 'Labour Solidarity', now semi-defunct as an organisation. Their immediate aim is to pressure Kinnock into supporting change this year, and build on the wide reservoir of support that clearly exists in the Parliamentary Labour Party for this. The greatest spur they have is the starting date for the next round of

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ies would like to see reselection reselections, in just months time.

The problems they face, however, are great. They must do it this year. They must have the support of Kinnock and the NEC. They must get the support of the large unions. But the next TGWU conference is not until 1985. And individual membership ballots will not get the support of even many right wing trade unionists because they cut out direct local union influence on the General Management Committees.

There is already speculation about other possibilities to gut re-selection, but without taking it head-on. Such an approach would make it easier for union barons to ditch existing mandates. The idea of setting up an 'appeals committee' for de-selected MPs has been mentioned in this context - ie. a body that could over-ride a CLP's decision.

But whatever the possibilities, any proposals must still achieve the right's basic aim of taking away effective control from the ELP organisation, and whatever the details it is inconceivable that they would be able to do this without provoking a major clash with Kinnock's constituency base.

The same would be true if the NEC attempted to use its powers to sanction the timetable for each selection to postpone the whole procedure until after the 1985 Party Conference. Would they want to push such a postponement if they were faced with the prospect of 100 CLPs demanding their constitutional right to start their procedure , between December 1984 and October 1985?

Here, as with the witchhunt, it is the threat of such a response and of resistance which stops the Kinnock centre-left giving full support for the right and keeps . the right isolated and ineffective.

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JOHN HARRIS JOHN