Answer Right- Wing Offensive

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Which way for the Left?

Weighell Chapple On Saturday 12th the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy meets for its AGM - in the midst of a major backlash against Labour democracy. Tom H and John Mcilroy take up the debate on how the Left should organise — making a proposal for 'a broad left Socialist Forum or Socialist Fellowship' BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS AVAILABLE Cannon: Notebook of an Agitator £2.20 Ryazanov: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels £2.65 Farrell: Northern Ireland, the Orange State £5,95 Socialist Organiser: Labour democracy and the fig Thonessen: The emancipation of women £2.50 Ever had a go at doing cartoons? Our cartoon ist wants other comrades to share the load "Trotsky: The Transitional Programme £0.30 and provide more variety. Send your sketches Mullin: How to select or reselect your MP £0.85 to Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, Please add postage and send to SO, 28 Middle by Tom Hart and Mellroy AS rank and file land recent) members of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, we would like to take up some of the basic points which inform the perspective of retrenchment for the left in the Labour Party outlined by Vladimir Derer.

We believe that Vladimir is correct to insist that we must look reality in the face and to warn against any overestimation of the sitmation presently COLL fronting us. The results of the reselection process over the last months, for example, show a strong current for retention of MPs who backed Healey against Benn and who have otherwise resisted the democratisation of the party. The fact that the Stanley Clinton Davises, George Cunninghams and Joel Barnetts are able to hang on shows that we have forged a weapon that we are not yet strong enough to ase to its full effect.

The collapse of the Labbur vote in Warrington and Crosby too cannot be shrugged off. The powerful lide turning towards the Social Democrats has to be London N8.

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DALS MORNI Shore taken seriously and makes the possibility of a majority Labóur government at the next election increasingly unlikely! On the industrial front most of the trade union leaders are facing falling membership and financial problems with caution and conservatism. The fightback against Thatcherism on the shopfloor is limited and uneven whilst the demoralisation these factors can breed can lead to moves to the right reflected in, for example, the AUEW elections. The left's only answers, moreover, are often far too rudimentary. It is all very well for us to call for the nationalisation of 25 large companies but if we are to take this demand into the movement we nee need a lot more concrete detail and explanation of both philosophy and mechanics.

10 2 PARTI Agreed then that we have massive problems, how do we react to them? One way is to follow the path already trodden by Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock by closing ranks, dropping our policy demands and aspirations to transform Labour into a socialist party, and uniting on terms which are essentially laid down by those who must bear the main responsibility for the predicament the Labour Party faces today, those who in 1970 and 1979 led the Labour Party to humiliating defeat after betraying in office the people and polieies that put them there.

'Mad Dog'

To follow this course would be to replace 'Never again' with Just once more' . It would mean following the suicidal trajectory of every past Labour left. Having closed ranks to get the Tories out, we more compelling necessity not to let the Tories in We are not for one minute suggesting that Vladimir is advocating the path of Bevan and Foot but that is the logic of his approach. The pathos of his position lies in the belief that there is some honourable compromise attainable between those who stand for socialist policies and those determined to maintain the capitalist mixed economy and the privileges of MPs essential for that maintenance.

That the right have no intention of compromising is evident from the Shadow Cabinet elections and the recent attack on Benn for upholding conference polcy. John Golding's description of Benn as a 'mad dog" speaks volumes.

Limited

Moreover, it is not merely the Healeys, Hattersleys and Shores who are calling for bans and proscriptions. Frank Field has decided not to stand for the Shadow Cabinet, the better to prosecute the witchhunt, whilst even CLPD supporter Neil Kinnock is urging new tests of admission based on his own limited conceptions of 'parliamentary democracy'.

Unpopularity

The prospects for an honourable armistice seem to be extremely limited. The alternatives for the Bennite left would seem to be either unconditional surrender or the creation of a fighting capable of developing strategy and resisting the growing right wing offensive, providing a forum for discussion and action, sponsoring a newspaper and regular meetings all . over the country.

Against this Vladimir urges the necessity to utilise existing channels. We agree but don't we need to organise to do this?

The right wing already have their organisations. The Shadow Cabinet for a start. The. Manifesto Group recently got up on their hindlegs to petition the NEC for an inquiry into Militant. Healeyites facing reselection have the support not only of this organisation and Labour Solidarity but of course the organised media. "If vile people unite and constitute a force then decent people are required to do likewise" . The fragmentation led by the LCC must be braked and reversed. We need united organisation of the left bridging Parliament, the CLPs and the unions.

The aim of the Bennite left must be the leadership of the party as the guarantee and precondition of socialist policies which will mean a mass base and a mass vote. This objective means a long haul. We cannot short-circuit the situation. It also means crucially the left maintaining its independence. We must weather the unpopularity and lay firmly at the door of its creators - those who have opposed the democracy struggle and who still presently control the party.

It is essential, however, in the meantime, to turn outwards towards the youth, women, blacks, and of course, the unions. Vladimir, however, apparently objects not only to a new broad left organisation but to campaigning beyond the narrow terrain of the To adopt this perspective is to fight with one hand tied behind our back, ceding the basic working class organisations to the right. The struggle to democratise the party is inextricably intertwined with the struggle for democracy within the unions. There was in the Deputy Leadership election a strong cortelation between those unions moving in an undemocratic direction, EETPU, AUEW, GMWU, NUR and strong support for Healey.

For good or bad - and we feel it is for good - the last two years have broken open the clogged valves between party and union. If, as Vladimir claims, progress was made on the limited terrain of the party, it will be endangered today unless the fight is taken into the unions. It is on this terrain that the future prospects for socialism and the Labour Party will ultimately be determined.

Dogged

This brings us to our final point. Vladimir argues that the CLPD has achieved its success by sticking to the question of democracy and by not identifying with policy issues: this has enabled it to build wide support in the party. For us the fight for party democracy is basically a political issue - and a clear left/ right issue at that. We believe in the end in the potential of the rank and file constituency activist and trade union member for socialist politics. We fight to democratise the party and the unions to provide the opportunity to implement a socialist society.

Foot, Healey, Shore, Kinnock have not, to put it mildly, been on the side of democracy in the fight on the manifesto, reselection and the electoral college. Neither do we believe that they seriously share our objective, the termination of capitalism. We have to face the fact that, just as in the case of the full-time union official, even more so the MP is the focus of a host of conservatising pressures which make most of them bitter and dogged opponents of control from below and ultimately the aims of the CLPD. = The Campaign must realKinnock SOCIALIST ORGANiSER Rosa Luxemburg Speaks £3.95 for a workers' government £0.40 Trotsky on Britain £2.25 London N8. ise that as issues have polarised, its support has not come from centre MPs, not from the 'inside left' but largely from Benn supporters.

It is clearly as part of that grouping that the CLPD should see itself. The situation facing supporters of democracy today is far different from that of two years ago. With polarisation it is time to make choices. We look forward in the not-too-distant future to seeing the CLPD as part of a broad left Socialist Forum or Socialist Fellowship campaigning for the democratisation of the Labour Party and the trade

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Books and pamphlets that you should read THE Socialist Organiser no. 65 91981

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