THE LABOUR Coordinating Committee (LCC) is the Labour Party's most politically significant 'soft left' organisation. For several months now that part of the political spectrum has been facing increasing contradictions. This year's LCC conference saw that crisis coming out into the open more clearly than ever before. The conflicts it is generating are likely to be increasingly important over the next year. JOHN ROSS looks at the choices now facing Labour's 'realigned left'.
THIS YEAR'S annual general meeting • Labour Coordinating Committee (LCC) was an important one. It confirmed the crisis of perspective of Labour's 'soft left' — a crisis openly announced in realignment' by Tribune's editor Nigel Williamson in that paper's Labour Party conference issue.
Williamson admitted that: "The soft has become probably the least coherent grouping in the that: 'the pally. realigned left feels almost powerless to do anything about It 1s heavily locked into SURALCEY of supporting Kinnock (for the very best of the to mass meeting, or strikes ballots, were never likely to survive the HOIC difficult Circumstances of recession, communication techniques membership awareness. The mie sunke was. , in mans ways, the death knell of these practices.
Thompson argued for the left.
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This was defeated by 68 votes to 48.
at The LCC would welcome closer cooperation with others on Labour's left especially over demands women's rights and Black Sections. welcome and encourage examples of joint work such as over the Khan-Scally campaign and we invite the widest possible support for initiatives like our new trade union charter, our economic statement, and our key points for the next election The LCC's present priorities do not include Promoting yet more new organisations on the left. We retain a commitment to our distinctive 'third road' strategy for democratic socialist transformation. But we are not a sectarian organisation and this AGM therefore instructs the EC to respond to invitations to mutua cooperation with other groups or individuals on Although recognising that some involved in Labour Left Liaison display a sectarian hostility to the LCC, we nevertheless welcome LLL's invitation to explore the basis for joint cooperation and This AGM notes that the left of the party has changed markedly over the last five years, with the emergence of two divergent political forces. LCC has committed itself to a third road strategy of working constructively for democratic socialism in the Labour Party. We have therefore rejected the politics of Trotskyism and the oppositionalism This AGM believes that Labour Left Liaison is a sectarian political project whose aim is to reverse the decline of the so called hard left by hijacking groups and campaigns under an anti-leadership This AGM believes that any attempt to construct unity with the ultra left is pointless and • There are clear differences of politics and strategy between the LCC and the ultra left which will no doubt become more crucial after the election of a Labour government when our strategy should be to build support to ensure that the leadership carries out the party's radical policies, while combatting the inevitable ritual denunciabecoming more and more fragmented. Dialogue would simply give renewed credibility to their emphasis on internal conflict and attacks on leadership, and would depart from our view that the demands of WAC, the Black Sections, and other groups should be independent of any par• Any dialogue or organisational link at national level could not be reflected by unity on the ground • To spend time and energy on inter-left debate would distract from our major aim, which must be - to concentrate on winning support for the party and on developing the radical policy commitments • Of course the LCC, both locally and nationally, should continue to work with other left groups and individuals on specific issues. In particular we should give unconditional support to the central demands of those such as WAC and the Black Sections campaign. We seek to change Labour Party women and members of minority ethnic groups, and with those who are fighting to make the issues of race and women's and lesbian and gay liberation reject any links with generalised ultra left coaliThe AGM instructs the LCC executive to conduct its relations with other left organisations on