crucial for the ruling class. When Thatep cher commenced her working class after companied by dramatic Labour support as voters repelled by Thatcher moved to vote Labour. In 1980-81 Labour was regularly gaining 45-55 per cent in the opinion polls and won crushing electoral victories in the local government elections in 1981. If the SDP had not split from Labour then, despite the Falklands war, Tories woeld almost certainly been defeated in the next general election after 1979. Indeed despite the bonus of the war the Tory vote still fell in 1983 compared to 1979. A Labour government elected at that time would have been relatively left wing in that it would have been pledged to try to reverse most of the changes brought about in British society by Thatcher.
Policies To maintain the essential policies of Thatcher, policies to which the British runng class are tolany commutea. was therefore absolutely imperative for the ruling class to prevent Labour winning the election.' That meant drastically cutting into Labour's support and preventing those disillusioned Thatcher voting Labour.
For reasons we have already seen the Tories could not achieve that task - the working class cannot be won to support therefore necessary to reduce Labour's attacks on the votes, by 1979 this was acrise SDP-Liberal Alliance.
was. The creation the have HEUVE C IL, Elections port fell by was inis Greenwich with Wak ment vote, and prevent Labour picking up non-Tory alternative.
This was the significance of the split from Labour to form the SDP - which followed by the creation of the It is still not widely enough appreciated on the left just how stunningly successful that ruling class operation an Ine oor was among the most successful ruling class attacks ever mounted on the Labour Between the election of 1979, with the SDP formed in 1981, Labour's supOver ueC HidE vulo.
Not a single one of these votes went to on the contrary the Tory vote declined by almost 700,000 votes. The entire loss of votes by Labour in 1981-83 was to the Alliance - whose vote increased by 3.5 million in 1983 compared to the Liberal vote in 1979. It Alliance vote, cutting into Labour, which played the decisive role in ensuring the re-election of 'lhatcher.
The consequences of this role of the Steel, Alliance could be seen clearly not only in 1983 but in a by-election such as and in a whole series of other areas like it. There is no possibility whatever of the Tories ever winning a selke eenwc o oor e non-Tory vote in the Greenwich by-election was 89 per cent and the Tories have not held the seat for 50 years. But the Alliance, a non-Labour non-Tory in disasters such as the 1983 election.
The role played by SDP-Liberal Alliance is clear. SDP-Liberals cannot form a governonly the Conservative and Labour Parties have the institutional strength to form the dominant parts of government in Britain. The present role of the Alliance is to cut deeply into the LabOur vOle. prevent ine Labou movement from benefitting from the hostility to Thatcher, and therefore to keep Thatcher in power desite ever-decreasing vote. If, despite these efforts, Thatcher were to be defeated in then the role of Alliance would be to ensure that the essential structural changes about by Thatcherism were maintainned through either forming a coalition with Labour, and safeguarding Thatcher's changes within that, or through amecuy lommng a coaltol with the Tories to sustain them in office. It is a tremendously effective strategy as 1983 already showed, and as Greenwich has again graphically conThis combination of the brutally repressive assault by the Tories, and the cutting into the Labour vole by the Alliance, amounts to the most serious ZHAO ned Ol ereamıa0o! movement this century.
For itself the Alliance has botnerea io concedl Ils goals leader of the Liberal Party, writing in this week's Observer stated once again: "The Alliance. is quietly and effectively geting on with its long term strategy of replacing Labour as the main opposition party by defeating Labour candidates. The Conservative aoes not even aspire to Labour seats at the next general election. On the showing of Greenwich, we the Alliance can wIl sores aldales 10 capture Tory the cities, north The Labour should feel weak enough to give its help to the Alliance in the suburbs; south England, the west. coalition of a southern Alliance and northern Labour seems tancitul at ore sent. The worse Labour does in eccles. does, the more possible such a desirable coalition of the left (and the dismantlher ing of the Labour Party under its present constitution) will become.
The Financial the editorial produced for the last election, concluded: "The policies on which the brought Alliance has fought the election are not exciting but main lines of economic policy we can, with one exception (statutory incomes policy), largely endorse COONV trap, maintaining European links, and seeking to adress the grave problem of unemployment ... In a more representative voting system, the Alliance could emerge tomorrow as the main alternative to Mrs Thatcher, which we would count as a strong gain. Realities never David right wing will not despite the fact that it is such a threat to Labour. Firstly about half the Parliamentary Labour Party, cant part of the trade union bureaucracy, actually agree with the policies advocated by the SDP. There is no fundamenta difference win policies advocated by Roy and David Owen or David Steel - and it should be remembered that the overwhelming majority seats in the England and Scotland; paign manager for East Anglia Such a geographical with the the and the better the Alliance Times, in a special they are appealing. Its La market the c on the poverly British politics.
These realities explain why Labour's fight the Alliance tral campaign and a signifi- paign has to DeLWCCI the anything else, Hattersley of the shadow left's agenda. means that Labour makes no real camagainst the When campaign proposed a central campaign against the Alliance he was turned down.
The reality with the Alliance, as 'new realists' in the trade unions, is therefore clear. Only the left of the party has the possibility to make a real struggle against the Alliance. But for far too long it has hesitated to do Normal Labour sections of the left have hoped that somehow Britsh politic: would 'return to normal' That the leti could get back to the old routine of denouncing the Tories and slagging off leadership. That they wouldn't have to undertake the difficult and vital task of fighting a non-Tory deadly enemy of the labour movement - the Alliance.
Greenwich shows once more, for those who had still not drawn the lesson, that there will be no 'return to normal'. That the SDP and Alliance are a permanent structural feature of And that they are a deadly political weapon pointed at the heart of the labour movement.
The left, every possible trade union, and every constituency that is threaten ed with the Alliance has to make a cenattest l • start quite regardless of whether Walworth Road launches such a campaign or not. Because the stakes with the Alliance are far too high to do and the right will not fight the Alliance.
That fight against the SDP-Liberal Alliance has to go right to the top of the
Socialist Action 6 March 1987 PRESSURE FOR trade controls, protectionism, rapidly in the United States: They accompanying a US defecit which is now running at almost $200 billion a year. month the US threatened to impose 200 per cent import duties on EEC agricultural exports to the United 1950s and 1960s and of the Atlantic up Alliance between the United States and western Europe. A turn to protectionism by the would mean a change in the entire Last politcal situation.
FREEMAN looks at how protectionism is being fostered by the deline in competitiveness of the United states ALAN