LABDUR Vext steps after Brighton

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VLADIMIR DERER writes the column from the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy this week.

AT ITS recent meeting the CLPD Executive rejected the proposal that CLPD should participate in the proposed formation of a 'new Left Wing' organisation based on the just concluded Deputy Leadership campaign. The majority of the Executive held that at this time such a step would be tactically inept.

Instead the CLPD Executive recommended that CLPD should continue to cooperate with the Labour Coordinating Committee, the Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory, NOLS, Clause 4, Militant and the LPYS in the framework of the reconstituted or, if need be, "re-vamped" , Rank and File Mobilising Committee.

While a joint platform of this body would necessarily involve further negotiations with the above organisations, and hopefully also others, it was anticipated that such negotiations would not give rise to any major difficulties.

What was seen as the main problem was agreement on the 'style' that the reformed body should adopt. It was thought that the 'style" should be in line with the prevailing mood in the party. This, it was felt, was characterised:

1. by the increasing ing that there is a need to restore to the Labour Party the credibility crucial if the unprecedentedly reactionary policies of hatcher are to be successtully challenged in the next general election.

2. by the realisation that Labour will not acquire this credibility so long , as it appears to be a hopelessly divided party. This realisaton is reinforced by the awareness that the new SDP factor means that Labour is no longer the only alternative to the Tories.

In these circumstances, if the advocates of democratic reform were to take any ateps that would tend to increase the existing tensions within the Party, it would merely strengthen the positon of those intent on putting the clock back.

Successful

The setting up of an entirely new organisation which would adopt a 'high profile' approach - with circuses and jamborees so beloved to be far 'Left'. , the CP,, and those members of the Labour Party who try to compensate for their inability to make any headway within the Party (i.e. their failure to make full use of the existing party channels) by fantasies about the effectiveness of 'extra-parliamentary' action - would make a successful defence of such gains as have been made, let alone any new achievements, quite impossible.

A 'low profile' approach, on which the Executive decided, does not imply purely defensive tactics. It does, however, involve acknowl edging that our opponents have achieved a major victory at Brighton, and not just because they were "better organised' , but also, and more importantly, because support for greater accountability and the measures that would ensure that conference policies are actually acted on, has ebbed, because of the Thatcher threat and increasing disunity.

Under these conditions a vigorous defence and new adyances can only succeed by occupying such positions as would enable the majority of the Labour Party and trade union rank and file members to see that it is the attitudes and course of action adopted by the antireformers as well as the obduracy of the PLP, whichare the main obstacle to Party unity.

Divisions In this context a 'high profile' approach by us would prevent this realisattion as it would be seen as conducive to continuing divisions.

The CLPD Executive therefore decided to recommend that CLPD aims be purused in the usual way and broadened to included trade union grass roots organisations.

So far as the impending regional conferences of the Labour Party are concerned, te Executive agreed on the following priority subjects:

Accountable 1. Democracy within the Parliamentary Labour Party.

2. Positive discrimination for Labour women. (In both the above cases the CLPD campaign is to be based on resolutions remitted by conference to the NEC), 3. The inclusion in the next Labour Party election manifesto of the demand to take into public ownership at least 25 of the largest manufacturing companies, as proposed in the 1973 Labour Party programme.

4. The strengthening of the mandatory reselection procedures by doing away with the 'shortlist' of one except where there is only one nominee.

5. Making Labour groups accountable to their CLPs and their Local Government Committees.

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