IT IS fortunate that ninety per cent of those likely to party's 1987 manifesto. Because if they did so carefully, tions, it would seem as one of the most incredible documents ever put before the electorate.
It was summed up when campaign coordinator Bryan Gould appeared on the one o'clock radio on the day launched. It was pointed out that the document was actually now ambiguous on its most famous pledge million in two years. It appeared that more than one quarter of the 'reduction' in unemployment would be accounted for by taking people into training schemes - with no guarantee that they would get a job at the end.
Gould had to admit that this was true. That Labour was no longer even pledged to get a million off the dole and into real jobs.
This is the same on each major issue. Retreat has followed retreat.
radical policy, unilateral nuclear disarmament, • As we has been watered down to the point where it has now virtually disappeared. Gould was caretul to avoid even using the words 'unilateralism' when interviewed on radio. • Any commitment to remove has been eliminated. simply states that Labour will introduce a policy 'gradually diminishing Britain's dependence upon nuclear energy' what degree, is never stated.
• No figure whatever is given for what would be the level set for the national minimum wage which Labour would introduce.
• The Ministry for measure in promised by Labour, is tucked away on page 13 of the manifesto - unlike the Alliance which puts forward its policies on women's rights as the se cond item of its manifesto.
If you were to judge it by its manitesto, you would have to conclude that Labour were a rather right wing party with still - despite the best attempts anti-nuclear 'defence Tories, and Alliance, about the 'looney left', would be hard to work out.
But the one thing the Labour Party cannot avoid being is itself.
Labour is not what it is pledged to but what it is based on. Because to carry through their policies the Tories, and the Alliance, would have to break every organisation on which the Labour Party is based. hey would have to brea unions, to break local government, to break the tradition of voting for a party based on a free and independent labour movement.
And inside those organisations today are concentrated every major force that stands for pro gress, freedom, That is what that vote is about on 11 June. It is not about Neil Kinnock. Or the lamentable and right wing manifesto he has produced. It is about the long term development of socialism in Britain. It is because there is no way to socialism in Britain which goes through seeing Labour's vote chopped down by parties to its right. There is no to socialism in consist in strenginening weakening, the labour movement.
but for what it is working class in Britain today.
wants to defeat it. Inal socialist in Britain should be inside it. That is should vote for it. vote Labour will never read the and think about its implicathe unemployment Dy show on this page Labour's most nuclear power Instead the manifesto - by what time, and to Women, the one radical central government organisation concealment - a peculiarly policy. Just why the are getting so worked up and the socialist threat, WHEN LABOUR's manifesto was published on Tuesday ment in the lifetime of a Labour government was definitely not among the party's pledges for the 1987 general election. Instead the leadership only underfakes that if the US-Soviet Euromissiles talks break down Labour will 'inform' the USA of its 'wish' to remove missiles reiterating the commitment to scrap Polaris and cancel Trident, the manifesto contains no mention of getting rid of US nuclear bases. In line with the launch of December, what does remain of nuclear disarmament policy is firmly set in a pro-US, pro-NATO context. But, while Labour is retreating on one of its few remaining progressive policies, Margaret Thatcher is cashing in on the climate created by the Gorbachev proposals, claiming zero option'. CAROL TURNER reports on how the right have sabotaged Labour's nuclear disarmament policies.
AN 'Advice Note' issued ov warworin koad on 11 April warned pros parliamentary candidates The forthcoming genera election campaign will ser all kinds of broad nonBally pressure groups attempting to luence or win support for their policies from Labour candidates. It will also see particularly the ConserSDP-Liberal valive Parties attempting smear the Labour Party by implying that we have no policy our have simply tured" by this or that parcampaign.
'One of the most important issues where there will be considerable pressure group activity and interest will be defence. The largest 19 May unconditional nuclear disarmaWhilst defence campaign last she supports a 'zeroweapons from the bases CND wants to close all US bases and communications facilities. This proposal has been consistently defeated at Labour conferences.' (original emphasis)
By overwhelming majority at the 1983 and each subsequent policy has been to 'unconditionally remove all existing nuclear weapons and bases within the lifetime of the next Labour government' (composite resolution 40, 1983).
Votes Issued advance of the Clause meeting which decided the the Clause V meeting of Tues. six azallot mediately after Kinnock's trip to the White House Denis Healey told the that claims Washington 'that Neil Kinnock put forward policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament were completely untrue!
Since the launch of Labour's Modern in a Modern World camat the end of last Walki year, Healey nas oecon the chief Labour spokes person the nuclear disarmament issue. His opposition unilateral nuclear disarmament has been well-known for many Choosing him Labour's spokesperson ir the election campaign can only be taken as anothe sign the leadership simply isn't about unconditional nuclear ment.
has already manifesto not weaken our commitment to, or our timetable securing a non-nuclear defence strategy for tain within the lifetime of the next Labour government.
The day after Healey's speech, the published an "exclusive' story on the Tory smear campaign against and agalls! CND in the 1983 general election. The evidence comes from one of the Secret Society TV series (which originally included the Zircon film, now banned), the screening of which was suppress. ed because of the election.
The Piers Wooley a former • official, who said: 'At the time, nuclear were regarded as possibly quite a large pro blem as far as the election was concerned ... . the party was worried that the momentum CND and the popular demand in the Labour Party for uncondi tional nuclear ¿disarma ment in the lifetime of one parliament, but by working the scenes to undermine that position.
Whilst that was hap Perning thai so-called soft maintained agnosti silence which allowe gi cale greater 'reinterpretation of policy. In practice they supported the right wing offensive. By the time the defence campaign was launched last December the majority of the soft left were prepared to welcome it.
The LCC-sponsore Tribune Willamson Nige wen
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