councils, HaSS i unemployment, returng to orvartisansmip on Ireland, and launching the witch-hunt - this left has found itself called upon to accept more and more unpalatable politics. Elements of a crisis have now developed among sections of it.
Some have gone along with Kinnock - • Tribune handing progressively more of its columns over to witch-hunts. But others have been forced to take their distance from Kinnock on a number of questions.
The second force developed is a struggie ien, which merged out of support for the This had its strongest bases in the leadership of the NUM in the strike and those who supported it, Women Against Pit Closures. and sec. tions of the PLP. This left is probably most associated with the Campaign group. But since the end of the miners' strike it has widened out.
Support for the black section, for defending the black communities against the police attacks last autumn, supporting the struggle in Nicaragua and El Salvador, opposing the witchhunt, opposing AO-SIC• cord, supporting the campaign of the Action Committee shadow elections to the women's places on the NEC, active involvement in supporting all those engaged in struggle, are the features that have marked this left.
Since the end of last year the different components of this left have been increasingly tending to converge.
It has set out to determine the agenda of the party putting forward positive proposals for action. It has also been notable for linking activity in Parliament to struggle outside it. Campaign group MPs have become relatively familiar figures at picket lines and in leading campaigns like Justice for the Mineworkers. It is a parallel process to Bernie Grant backed the black community tenham.
The third current which developed is a genuinely ultra-left one. This left takes as its stated goal not the fight against Thatcher but organising an 'anti-Kinnock left'.
Events since the end of the year have clearly moved in favour of the secone oe miese currents struggle/Campaign left. The Westland crisis has both shown that Thatcher, and her government, are and revealed the failure of the Labour leadership to take advantage of it.
Meanwhile an increasing policy shift to the right, and dissatistaction in the party with it, has opened up greater possibilities for united action on the left. It gives the possibility to recompose the movement around positive proposals for action, and policies, not around 'oppositional activity?
SOCIALIST ACTION TONY BENN how he saw prospects in the coming year, after Westland, how he assessed the present state of the left, and what he saw as the role of the Campaign group. has FORWARD TO FREEDOM IN NAMIBIA SOUTH AFRICA for in Tothas WESTLAND IS a very important turning point. But it's not only Westland. 1985 was a hard year for socialists. You had a period where the setback with the end of the the class miners strike created a great sense of disappointment and anxiety. vulnerable There was the what was called around the feeling that the local government battle could not be sustained.
At the Bournemouth conference the main news story was that the Labour leadership intended to eliminate what was known as the 'far left' - although the actual decisions of the delegates were excellent.
At the end of the year there were asked three or four articles by lobby respondents Hugo Young, Jenkins, Peregrine Worsthorne, Brian Walden - all at the same time in December looking back 'socialism had been defeated.' It was a minority cult, and it was finished.
Interestingly what began explicitly last May in a New Socialist hirog leffi, FURNARD TU FREENOM N NAMIBIS thought.
Anyone would beginning of 'realignment' and spirit up lusion.
quickly at the turn of the year now just 'campaigning' CUL- paigning meant Peter lustrative arguments, There alacks.
saying vacuum Decame exacl Secondly move to undertake. article osed end of the old replaced by a new wwed quickly hammered.
SOLIDARITY
to the constituencies. vacuum. cherism' which been runnng by the analysis, after Bournemouth, that in fact it was socialism that had disappeared, not a particular stream of to one side.
have been excused last year for feeling that it was a very hard grind and that we had to face a long period perhaps in the wilderness what I mean. - before there was any prospect of a change. It was difficult to keep morale na CO suLuCCV But I think that pessimism was an il- working in Things were happening simultaneously that come to a head quite First it became apparent to a large right number of people in the movement that quadruples. policy in the Labour Party had been things you downgraded to the point where we were campolling, charts, ilus la-k oof was a serious lack analysis, a lack of criticism. The policy people began to realise that the witch-hunt was a desperate could no tee. doubt made criticisms of anybody. But once you start to go for witch-hunts you go deeper and deeper into the mire.
The Liverpool concillors were rac- special thinking. They were not prepared to see good comrades vilified.
I think the attack on Bernie Grant, like the attack on cargill, was seen as a signal by the movement. They thought 'this can't be right.' Here are comrades in a difficult situation and they re being It became apparent that there was no end to it. The threat of expulsions goes far beyond the Militant tendency. There are now many constituencies and individuals around the country who are being witch-hunted by the right.
Devon Labour Briefing are under attack by the Exeter party. Walsall party has been suspended. St Helen's has been suspended and so on. You've seen the list in Labour Witch Hunt News. This created a great deal of unease The fact that the left did not respond personally in counter attack was very wise. It was very important that these events - the vacuum in policy the witch-hunting of the left - should be allowed to be conducted without the normal press comment that this was really the left attacking the right. It was manifestly seen to be the right attacking the left. And the message got through Over and above that there was this mounting crisis which became known as the Westland affair. This was really a crisis with very deep roots, the nature of which has hardly been reported. I think all these things have combined to • underlne mne neca ror le sociansi How do we fill this vacuum? A crisis in the system, a break up of the establishment between Europeans and Americans, a perception of parliamenaS n a covel for meet something quite different (which it is), a vacuum of policy, and a right wing attack upon the left. That is part of a big I think that the filling of that vacuum, by the left, is what needs to be done. Not attacking the leadership, not putting up a candidate, not splitting the party. Not to be drawn into this super ficial idea that it's all against "That Marxism Today have That fills no gap at all because Thatcher may well be replaced. If things go wrong for her all these old analyses fall The task is to fill the vacuum in the political system, that must be our prime task. Perhaps I can give examples of One area where I am working now is You take one area You are not organising a new sect. You geographical which happens to be the one I represent, and you work there What do you find when you develop that? You find that if you are doing the things your membership You find there are a lot of should have been doing wien vol naven eocen cole We've started an international com- that mittee in Chesterfield. The Russian and American ambassadors have written to say they're prepared to supply senior officials for a sort of Chesterfield summit. There we will have a discussion about East-West relations under the auspices of the international commitThen we had the immensely important "Aims and Objectives" discussion.
There were four months of work, ten meetings the wards, LWU
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SOUTH AFRICA! from below