THE REALITY of Labour's standing in the polls, that on present showing through to all sections of the party. The dominated the party since 1983, is already preparing its excuses - and the course it will advocate if Labour loses.
The lead has already been taken by the New Statesman which in a series of key editorials has spelt out the right wing's message - that Labour will lose the election because Labour is too left wing. In particular the New Statesman has called unilateral nuclear and come out for still stronger front bench atThis in line with the editorials being carried in the Guardian, Daily Mirror and other papers.
There is no doubt what is being prepared by the right wing. The right, having led the party to a new defeat, are then preparing to blame it on Indeed Labour losing the election would be seen as a great opportunity by sections of the right. It would be the sense' into the party.
opposition reselection of MPs and every policy gain made by the left in the last seven years.
This situation makes it vital that the left in the party gets its act together not simply on tactics but on strategy. been the right who threaten to lead the party to defeat in the general election politics does not work on the basis of an automatic reward for the virtuous. If the right wing lose Labour the election this will have a tremendously demoralising effect on whole sections of the working class. On the basis of that demoralisation the right would try to strengthen itself and get its version of events accepted.
This dictates that the campaign left of the must achieve two come forward before the election with a clear explanation that it is the right that is losing support in every field -policies is the best course both for the present struggles and to win the election. Stating that truth is also the best way to ensure that Labour has the maximum chance of winning. Labour's campaign left must spell out an alternative strategy for the party.
The period since Thatcher came to office has brought to a head tremendous changes that were already accumulating throughout the postwar period. These include deep changes in the working class itself. The number of white male workers in work has fallen by two million in the last seven years. labour force over the next five years is going to come from women.
Labour to tie together the white working class of the north and the new mass black working class in the south and Midlands.
The alliances which must be build as the core of an alternative strategy course, not first alliances. They are alliances in struggle. toral success for Labour can only flow out of real social alliances built around events such as the miners strike, the defence of local government, the fight against unemployment, and the fight to defend the welfare state, communities, championing women. Around these has to be cemented the international alliances Lanour's strategy for winning must start long before an election is called and be the logical outcome of the policy it has pursued outside elections.
The challenge facing Labour on this is clear When Labour won the general election in 1945 white employment everyone else in work by more than two to one. Today the working class is divided 50:50 between white men black people on the other. There cannot be any policy today which demands of women and black people absolutely centrai in its strategy.
That failure to have a policy even remotely reflecting the structure of the working class,.
with its international policies, been among the most greatest strategic failures of the labour movement.
The right is preparing its excuses. The left has got to prepare its strategy. Labour councils with leaders such as Merle Amory and Linda Bellos. opportunity to "knock Getting it to abandon to incomes policy, Despite the fact it will have things. First it must and that adoption of the left's Students (NUS) executive elections in March. The meeting is 'advisory' because the slate which is chosen has to be endorsed by the officers of NOLS before it is official. This procedure ensures that the 'Democratic Left' leadership of power to remove any candidate it does not approve from the official NOLS platform.
Voting at NOLS counCIl 15 open delegates from Labour Clubs and to any student union officer who member of NOLS. Since these posts overwhelmingly held "Democrati supporters the Left' join in order to further their this leads to the total domination of NOLS by the DL.
The structure status of NOLS council compielery UNCCENO ratic of NOLS candidates for the NUS executive should take place at NOLS conference itself on the basis of delegates from Labour Clubs only, and the date of NOLS conference should be moved accordingly. Only then will NOLS candidates truIv remedi me bordes or mie NOLS membership.
At the decisions of NOLS council can be disregarded by NOLS officers, besides which the voting is rigged so as to ensure a DL slate is choser.
CYCl time. Under •Dem LeIl poncy, NoLo, in le name of 'pluralism', does stand a full sate to NUS executive. At present NUs conferences this ha ensured the of Liberal candidates to the leadership of NUS VOTe recentl widespread dissatisfaction with the DL record of inhas the action in the leadership of the NUS has led to the *Socialist Students in NOLS' (SSIN) candidates. This is because the opposition to NOLS in the leadership of the NUS is to its left, and SSiN is the self-proclaimed "left opposition' the called Democratic Left.
NUS London Executive Far from being a left wing, SSiN's politics are in fact at odds with the grow'ing radicalisation among students. Led as it is Socialist Organiser, ISSIN has clashed head-on with black and women's self-organisation. SSIN slanes cremat une nanona! liberation movements in South Africa - while appearing very on the question of cuts in student grants.
The link between these positions is that SSiN's politics, under the dominance of Socialist Organiser, capitulates to imperialism - both directly in the sense of Ireland and support for -Zionism, by. adapting to the more privileged sections of tie working class agallisi women and black to defend al If a union is or is memoess take up more than purely It is this type of politics which explain the alliance in NOLS between and Militant, which acted as a voting bloc and callec for votes for each other's candidates Clearly the victory of such an alliance at the level of the NUS leadership could roll back many of the political advances made over recent • such as the policy oI brush withdrawal trom Ireland adopted last yea lof NUS women's officer by NUS In the LPYS, both Socialist Organiser have opposed and clashes between Black Section ally Socialist Organiser have now spilled over into the student field. The Labour Women's Action Committee (LWAC) has also now refused to platforms with SSiN.
NOLS should come clean and give the NUS elect candidate for every post if the member ship so wishes. This was nearly the case last ycal. with three SSiN candidates taking posts left open by official NOLS slate result of selection at NOLS council this year predictably , was a NOLS slate entirely composed of 'Democratic Left' supporters. The radicalisation TO among students combined with Kinnock's turn to the right has produced amon he Dem Leit the most e direction of the whole the soft left the Labour Party The Dem Left is currently torn between the supporters of Kinnock in its leadership and the majorities for the pontics ing which exist, unorganised, at its base NOLS council has pro duced no resolution to the crisis in the NUS. NOLS has produced campaigning leadership as yet The 'Democratic Left' still has to decide which side it's on.