almost certain to be announced in the next few days. In for candidates.
This campaign had now reached very broad proportions. It started with support from Marxism Today, Statesman, the Guardian and Observer. That Solcau Labour Party through the explicit support for the formation of the 'Tactical Voting '87' campaign and Lne support Lacucal Moring given by Frank Field The leadership made clear that I1U will be taken against those calling for votes for SDP or Liberal candidates against Labour. The very same April NEC which Sharon Atkin as a parliamentary candidate refused to LUlL' sider a resolution by Tony Benn requiring Frank Field Шакс а statement calling for a vote all Labour Partv Catales Not only does this show the the dual standard of rustice operated by the NEC right wing, but also the implicit acceptance of the tactical Neil Kinnock ruled out any discussion of the Frank Field case on the grounds it would be 'divisive.
exnlains the extraordinary new development wherebv the Labour Party's own magazine, New Socialist, is also now calling for "tactical voting'. Its editor, Stuart Weir, devoted the front cover and ten inside pages of the May issue * to a call for tactical voting'.
Weir calls for unions to use their money in support of the tactical voting campaign. Weir argues: there 1 a major weakness in tv87's (Tactical Voting '87) inTe VARION. campaign at the moment is too thin in resources and too short of money to be effective where it really matters Conservative marginals.
Most people in these seats don't know they are marginal, and they don't Tactical voting - anticipation the right wing is stepping up its drive for 'tactical voting'. Put bluntly, they are calling for a vote candidates other than official Labour Party know who came second in 1983. A largely national campaign may only stir up more self-defeating tactical voting. To arm people with the information they need, Ilas focussed locally, constituency by constituency.
*The most decisive and ing ne enformation can- way of • overcomnone would be commission polls in the key marginals during the election campaign. This would cost up to about £575,000 £1 million that NALGO is spending on its admirable Think Before You Vote" campaign, but undoubtedly more enrecuve nee could hardly be a better way of Weir concludes: I am for the tactical voting campaign because it seems to offer the only real prospect of stopping Mrs Thatche failure would hardly leave Labour any worse off, Labour better over leave Alternative Weir can get away with calling for candidates precisely because Kinnock acclares unal to lake Il uc would 'divisive left wing black PPCs of course 'unifying'.
In any democratically run party Weir would have been removed from his job right at the the last NE( not because of a witch hunt but because as a orca appointed by the party to Natariuc bound to carry out its decisions in fulfilling his post.
dinary was little reported speech, Hattersley publicly opened the door to tactical voting for the first time. Speaking on Saturday 2 May, he called for Owen and the SDP to 'use the tactical option to support defeat the Tories' But isn't there another side to the deal? it is mean ingless to call for the SDP to vote for Labour unless something in return. Have intends tersley is edging towards voting' That Labour wil not call for a vote for the the Alliance explicitly calls for a vote for Labour. And if it agrees then..?
This is in with some of Hattersley's positions. Ten years ago he described the Lib-Lab pact, the policies of which prepared the way for the disastrous Labour electoral deteat of 1979. a an example of 'men and women of public spirit and ical commonsense who have agreed to work together in the national interest' Indeed it has to be seriously questioned Welle volose of the right actually want to win the election. They leaders would prefer is to see finish a humiliating third in terms of the popular the Alliance to VULC win the J0 or seats necessary to establish Deered centre Such an outcome would be hard achieve without Mrs Thatcher winning her third majority?
Peter Kellner, political editor of the Statesman, which is one of the chief journals promoting tactical voting, wrote in the Independent on 30 March entreatingly:
ed four If it would 11 of these ilAlliance's Justrale would parliament"
from out. have galned.
let us four points tion balanced The an longer term more exciting them. They would lead parties that million realignment nonhave place would still secure benefits claims to the defeat at least to seats as well. But term. options prefer? think we In the 'two Owen stated his United ed the Steel Greenwich by-election:
quietly candidates Roy was the Communist rally The 'must transcend is playing. It is not a clever manoeuvre for getting rid villalac. It is to par ticipate in pols cant torce British politics. The right wing, by their policies, are actively participating in breaking up and trying to destroy the strength and credibility of the Labour Party.
When the election WHEN THE general election is called the left in this country is going to be facing a very different situation than the one it imagined.
During the last four years many socialists have concentrated on building a 'left to the left of Kinnock'. Not politics to the left of Kinnock, which are onviousv neeced. left that believed that would the election and what had to be build now was a fight against the betrayals of a Kinnock government.
reality.
The problem that is faced today is that there is not going to be a Labour confronted with long, bitter fight to defend the Labour movement even to defend Labour's . vote against workers shifting to vote for bourgeois val LIcs The problem that fac ed, and still faces, the left is not how to build a left to fight a future, hypoHencal government. It was how to build a left to fight against Thatcher now. Without success fight tere was never going to be a Labour Fight The leadership's repudiation of the NUA al Warrington, of the miners, of the Wappof Liverpool council, Broadwater Farm, and now of Sharon Atkin and the black combetrayal in itself. But these were the ones that ensured that there was not going to be a Labour government.
Not only was Kinnock's line not a socialis one, it was incapable of defending movement: either the trade unions or the Labour The result is that sinc 1979 almost four members have left the trade unions, three million workers have broken with Labour - not to its left but to its right. These workers have broken from voting for a working class voting for bourgeois parties.
The working class today finds itself in a bitter battle not immediately for socialism but to defend its existing gains Gains which are being broken up by the inability of the confront and defeat the offensive of the bourgeoisie.
The situation facing the labour movement in 1987 can be expressed in a reformist ideology of the Lavourism creasingly incapable defending the institutions of the labour movement.
Whilst combatting every manifestation labourism, socialists have to fight tooth and nail to defend every gain, defensive institution the labour movement. The unions, ver cut Illas campaigns movements the elements democracy in the Labour everything which Trotsky once referred to as the nuclei of proletaria acmocials withi bour geois society' are going to come under attack. without defending these inere can be no advanci towards socialism.
The Party'svote fits within thai 1nere are vuLa sions when a break from a traditional working class development. West Germanv those voting to the Greens do so as a way eft of the SPI But, in Britain, there is nothing whatever left wing about workers breaking from Labour to vote for the Alliance. That is a shift to tue rigat not to tne lett in that given situa LUN. socialists have to de fend and rebuild Labour's vote as a matter of urgen cy.
This is the situation today. It is the left which has the interest in Labour win. ming une election. Indeed 1l is its goal that should do so. It is the right which is sabotaging that from forming the govern ment The point that the lef makes is simply that winn ing the election cannot be achieved by the election itself. call all needed to start by supporting every struggle that has been wagca over lie las four years. It is because that course has not pursued that there is any chance of Labour losing the election today The central feature o British politics today politics movement crashing It is incapable of defending the movement. Socialists have defend the movement - on the basis of different politics and a different ideology.
applies to thi trade unions. It will apply the general campaign Whenever it is called. well
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in every government elections on 7 May, a general election is
PUBLISHED BY THE CAMPAION GROUP OF LABOUR NPS A strategy for destroying socialism
That approach was ab- surdly out of line with