cent. The divisions show where this vote went. party could cut into Labour's potential support like a knife through butter. The 'anti-Tory', but not anti-capitalist, tradition of the British working class movement is greatly disarmed in face of that assault by the Alliance.
Result The result can be seen clearly in working class constituencies in London such as Woolwich, Bermondsey, GreenAlliance, not the Tories, that is now the main rival to Labour here threatening these While the Alliance threat is particularly acute in the working ciass bastions in the South, in the North it is also progressively replacing the Tories as the second force in the cities Scotland the SNP and the Alliance vie with each other to attack Labour at the same time as the Scottish Tory Party is threatened with extinction. Transiated into British terms this development means defeats such as Greenwich and The total loss of Labour's percentage of the poli from 1966-83 was 20.4 per Labour seats' tain the fantasy that the SDP-Liberal Alliance is part of a 'progressive anti-Thatcher bloc' the Alliance themselves have no illusions whatever but that their role is to smash the power of the Labour Party altogether, as that is not possible in the real relation of forces, then to reduce Labour to the point where it has no option but to enter a coalition with the Thạt in government to still further weaken the Labour Party.
seats. Crysla caute before the last election: 'It is important tal nere saouia be a benevable and democratic left-of-Tory force in Parliament towards which by-elections and a while in future general election could then swWing. It is desirable that it should be of a can form parliamentary force with right-of-Foot secure enough at future by and general elections to help moderate Labour canVotes' - Allance (64 /0) representation.
While Marxism Today may enterGuardian, well as the - if not to eliminate it Given left of the party turn would be The Economist put these goals with in its voting editorial an effective below 40 The Alliance needs to feel cil and Gavin Laird, general secretary of the AEU, heads up the SDP's 'Fair campaign for proportional At a lower level John Grant, the EETPU's press officer, will be an SDP candidate at the general Outside the party the tactical voting, coalition line is supported by the Observer Statesman papers. In short the SDP is intertwined with the entire right wing of the trade union bureaucracy and PLP -"left' bourgeois press. these links there is no way the right wing is going to campaign against the Alliance.
Refusal to fight against the Alliance however also extends far into the soft - in addition to the role of Marxism Today as a direct trojan horse supporting a coalition with the Alliance within the soft left. The Labour leadership's own election strategy now relies on a high vote for the The advice presented to the joint meeting ot the Shadow Cabinet and NEC on 16 February acknowledged implicitly that Kinnock's policies had falled and that Labour's vote would stay per cent at the general election. On that basis the only way Labour could win an election is with a high vote for the Alliance. This, naturally,