Darlington has confirmed that Bermondsey was totally untypical of everything else in the recent electoral past.
The major lessons specific to Bermondsey.
The first has to be that you have trouble winning an election when 15 months earlier the NEC said the candidate was totally unfit to be a member of parliament. It's very difficult to come back to people a year later and say 'no, got it all wrong, wonderful really'. I don't think people are that stupid, and therefore it becomes an almost impossible situation to retrieve.
Secondly, you've got to look at what must be the most sustained campaign of abuse against an individual that there has ever been.
Finally you've got the special circumstances of Bermondsey. It was quite obvious to a lot of us as far back as fifteen years ago that Southwark Labour Parties were controlled by people who should really be in the were in the Labour Party because they knew that they could not advance their political career if they joined what they really wanted to be in.
They did terrible damage to the name of the Labour Party: huge pro'the leadership of the working class is lying down and pretending to be dead' perty deals for which they were well rewarded; appalling estates;
communities away.
That factor had an influence in that a lot of people were blaming the Labour Party at this election for the twenty years of corruption local government. Darlington shows that those circumstances will not be repeated anywhere else.
But throughout the last twenty years Labour's vote has declined and it's easy to see why. During that time we've had two appallingly bad governments. It's extremely difficult to get people to come out and vote for Labour when they remember that during these two governments things got worse for working people and not better.
Since then the social democrats who controlled those Labour governments have by and large confined their activities to parliament. So I'm not surprised that we have recently lost votes to the SDP. The SDP was specifically aimed to siphon off votes although these types of manoeuvres rarely last long, the record of the Labour leadership has played into their hands.
Building a campaigning party is were he's vital because there is a strong conservative strand within the ranks of the working class. It is a legacy of colonialism and imperialism and the fact that the Labour Party was created out of craft unions -Party still in part reflects that.
The problems of movement have been compounded by Ine role of the union leaders. Sinee the government during the they've relied on the fact that the government would negotiate with them. Now for the first time there is a Prime Minister who isn't interested in talking to them.
Why should she? They pose absolutely 11U threat helplessness of the trade union leaders reflects the fact that under Thatcher they are cut off from their main base of influence Lie bureaucracy and the corporate state.
They haven't tried to build a base amongst their own rank and file or in the community, themselves isolated.
So they are terrified of five more years of Thatcher and they think that the way to avoid it is to clamp down on the left and go along purges and witch hunt.
But there are also those who supwitch hunt, DWCUI in I'm not opposed to proportional representation in principle' they're afraid of Thatcher, because they want to prepare the way for a coalition. They want to purge the left from the party, so that the right wing rump can line up with the the Liberals 'Wets' grand coalition.
stall fascist. They know full well that Thatcher is not a fascist. position where the British ruling class give a firm commitment to their Party that they will not enter into a coalition of any kind with any other party.
If Labour were to do a deal with the Liberals, the SDP or the Ulster it could only be on the basis of ditching all of the left wing policies we have won over the last few The onl 'alternative' policy they would follow would be a slight printing of money to boost employment for a while. It's not too difficult to see what would happen after that. There would be inflation and the InMonetary Fund would come in — but the crunch would be even worse than it was in 1976/7. Labour would then be seen to have successive governments. It would be a disaster. I think Some people have linked coalitionism with the issue of proportional - for examole some people in the Communist Party. I'm ooposed proportional representation in principle, because the sort of Labour Party I envisage is the sort of party capable of winning a majority for socialism.
But I don't think that the views of the Communist Party are really relevant, as was shown in Bermondsey. Only 50 people out of 50,000 supported them, which is probably the number who would accidently vote for them when they put a cross against views being did to hard by vip forward members on coalitionism are the kind of policy which has led to the decline of the CP over twenty years.
In Bermondsey, Screaming Lord Sutch got more votes than the CP and the RCP put together. So I think the CP is dying on its feet. That's a tragedy for the CP, but I don't think it's something which should detain the rest of the left, history has moved In any case, if the CP backed would completely themselves because they with the social democrats against the left-wing of the Finally, in the struggle to prevent a coalition we come to the question of how to fight the right wing and I think that we latest initiative 'unity' from the CLPD and the LCC, wall an accommodation with the right wing. To my mind this is just not The LCC and the CLPD leaders may be wonderfully nice people. But the right wing is just not interested. If the CLPD and the LCC want to bend over to kiss the boot of Golding, then he will simply have less far to raise it when he kicks them in the mouth. The right wing isn't looking for that type When people roll over and hope that Golding will tickle their tummy they're wrong - he'll jump on their neck.
For the right wing, nothing will do short of full control of the party.
'if the CLPD and the LCC want to bend over to kiss the boot of Golding, then he will simply have less far to raise it when he kicks them in the mouth' Their real problem is that they have no real base — just the manoeuvring and bloc votes of a few trade union leaders and the discredited old social democrats inside the Labour Party.
No amount of cosving un to th right wing by the CLPD and the LCC is going to change their policies one iota. Everyone has been trying to accommodate to the right wing since the deputy leadership campaign. But every accommodation merely leads to greater demands for witch hunts and purges. That's why I'm not in favour of accommodation with the witchhunters.
I support the parties that refuse to recognise the expulsions. I think we will have to fight for an anti-witch hunt majority on the NEC at the October Party conference. It's impossible ble to predict exactly what will hapPeely to acersorate the purge her er- but personally I think they are 'if Labour were to do a deal with the Liberals, the SDP or the Ulster Unionists, it could only be on the basis of ditching all the left wing policies' ample by trying to prevent people like myself from being eligible to stand as candidates.
So it is the time for the left to start campaigning against any plan for coalitions and for support for radical socialist policies. That's why I am supporting Socialists for a Labour Victory. If the left doesn't launch this campaign It looks unlikely that anybody else is going to.
We have to both win the traditional labour vote and the potentially much larger band of opinion that you could categorise as either women with work experience, ethnic minorities, gays and so on. In order to do that we need a campaign.
JAIL with radical policies.
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This is the main line of reasoning Stahind all pose in the party who are