The shift away from Labour among trade unionists reflected the fact that Labour's right-wing Gonnalcu paign could not unite the employed and the unemployed, the skilled and the unskilled, the working class and other sections of the oppressed around fighting socialist policies.
To do that would have meant an entirely different kind of campaign, one which linked up with struggle and the mass campaigns, not one sabotaged by the right wing.
Beside the betrayal leadership, Labour had another problem the 1983 employed workers, living under the Tories have not dramatically but they did go down under the last Labour government. But this present 'honeymoon' the Tories will end. start to disappear forced into savage attacks on the working class.
In the coming struggles, must seize the initiative by basing itself on the interests of the overwhelming majority — the working class.
To move to the right, to become the kind of party that the latter-day Gaitskellites want, to become an SDP mark 2, would be to decline even faster.
The Labour Party can be rebuilt, not basis of 'classless' but by clear radical alternative to the SDP. mass party which champions every industrial struggle, every campaign nuclear disarmament, every struggle by the oppressed in this country.
The splitting of the anti-Tory vote at this election is just a stage in the fight for such a Labour Party. But it was not class-based politics which Labour's defeat, it was the sabotage of a right wing which wants to say goodbye to the working class.
In the next few years more and more workers are going to discover that there are no individual solutions to their problems. 'Affluent' workers are going to be few and far between. fashioned' people in the labour movement are those who confuse the myths of the 1960s with the realities of the 1980s.
Tables from The development of the British working class by Jean Gardiner in Aaronovitch and Smith leds! The of Capitalism (McGraw-Hill, 198l). of its Among standards gone down enou will As the oil revenues will be becoming presenting for The old.
British Aneurin Bevan (right) came to Hugh Gaitskell's rescue over nationalisation at the 1959 Party conference Romemically acare Unemployed Economically inactive Students Reuired Miltary Local authonity Public corporations Total public Private * Great Britain only groups, 1911-66 Occupational group Non-mannal worker Clerk Skilled Sent skale Toel Roy Jenkins, ex-SDP leader, has already waved goodbye to the working class Should the Labour Party join him?
Economic activity of population of Great Britain, 1961-77 Self employed and employers Employees in employment Part-ume workers (included above)
Male workers (included above)
Ferate workers (included above)
Total economically active Housewives and other persons Total economically inactive Total adult population (thousands)
Employment in public and private sectors for the UK, 1951-76 1951° 3.6 Civil central government 4.9 6.1 26.7 13.2 Sources Soctal Trends (1979), British Labour Stattsties Historical Abstract (1979) The occupied population of Great Britain by major occupational Employers and proprietors / Managers and administrators Lower professionals and technicians Foremen and inspectors Salesmen and shop assistants Percentage of population 1961 1977 54.6 34.4 10.4 36.3 32.4 18.3 22.0 1.0 3.4 59.9 62.2 2.5 3.0 6.2 11.7 31.4 23.1 37.8 39569 41353 Percentage of total 1961 1976 5.3 8.1 7.6 12.1 9.0 8. 1 23.8 29.5 76,1 70.5 As a percentage of total occupied populations 1911 1966 6.7 3.4 - 18.7 38.3 3.4 6.1 13.4 3.1 6.5 1.3 3,0 5.4 S8.3 30.5
Socialist Action 24 June 1983 AcTioN SOP SDP