Turning to inore recent events a Photo: GM COKSON broad debate has taken place since June 1983 on the future of the Labour Party. It seems to me there are really three phases since At the election one of the main aims of sections of the Tory Party, and the capitalist press. was to eliminate a Labour or socialist party as the alternative to the Tories — to try to create more or less a two capitalist party system as in the United Stares. This attempt failed both at the election and in the period afterwards.
Secondly Chesterfield showed that the press, Tories, and soP cannot eliminate socialism as a mass political current.
However all this still leaves Labour in a minority position at the present time. So far since June, if you put it that way, an essentially defensive battle has been waged — one that has been successful. But how do you see the Labour Party actually going forward now to win over new layers of support and to win back support which deserted in June 1983?
Yes, that is the crucial question.
I think that you have to be clear that when a big event, particularly a big About 13,000 people attended metings in a single constituency. I suppose there must have been 75 meetings. And we did actually by-pass the media.
When you get through to people and create the opportunities for getting through directly, then it seemed to me the right thing to do was to present with passion and commitment the polic! of the Labour conference. And when that was done it was seen by people isho heard it, and unders ood by people who heard it, to be highly relevant to their own immediate situation - unemployment, attacks on their unions, attacks on the health service. And it did produce a remarkable result.
Not only were there more Labour votes than there were in the summer but it completely counteracted what had been widely accepted to be the normal result where a sitting Labour member, for no very good reason, goes away and does something else — goes to Brussels as Jenkins or Marquand did, goes to the Lords as Whitelaw did. It absolutely counteracted that.
So it was a significant campaign in that it did dispose, I hope once and for all, of the idea (a) that the media can always wil Callba sus azalist LaDour candidates they don't like, (b) that an open advocacy of conference policy is bound be unacceptable 'moderate' town or electorate. And I think finally it gave people hope.
Une must never forget that when unemployment creates a sense of fear and disillusionment and antiety among the working population, particularly in industrial struggle, the ballot box is an alternative route by which people can express a view without penalising their defeat, occurs, as in June. a lot of people have got their own axe to grind and will come along and try to grind that axe. I think that Hobsbawm's analysis. which has become m.uch dis:ussed because of its direct nature is the mos: dangerous.
What he is saying is that we could not have won because of certain saciclogcal changes in the class structure e: sogety. Non :hat is manifestly untrue.
First of all it comes from somebody who isn't even a member of the Labour Party. And although he's very ready to criticise the Labour Party for having an internal debate, he is a member of a party that actually put up candidates and cost us at least one seat - in the case or Willie Whitlock who was defeated as a result of an intervention ot a Communist candidate. So that isn't a very credible argument.
But the other point is this. It doesn'i take account etiwo obuous tacts. One was that when we had a working class that was sociologically composed in such a way as to virtually guarantee a permanent Labour government i.e. in the inter-war years, we never had a maJonly Labour governmenl own position - use the ballot box to light a flicker of hope in what is a very dark period. That's the way I see it.
Could I sum that up as I saw it? Looking from the outside what Chesterfield proved was that the press, the media campaign, cannot eliminate socialism as a current in Britain they aimed to do.
That's right. Absolutely. They can't do it. And indeed the fact that they have to devote so much effort to attempting to do it is an indication of their assessment of how strong those ideas are. that's where the element of hope comes Hul.
Secondly it doesn't take account of the fact that as recently as March 1982. just before the Falkland's war. the government's popularity and the Prime Miniser': popularity was the lowest 2.3. And that there has been in any ¿ase a longterm decline in Conservative buDDUll uveilllalll lllalılıcars So I don't think his arguments are relevant. What I think he's trying to do, and this is based upon his own experience of fascism before the war and his own attachment to the policy of the Italian Communist Party, is to build up a sort of popular front which would include the Communist Party and also inclúde the SDP, which he for some strange reason regards as vaguely progressive, in order to beat Thatcherism — which is equated in his mind in some way with what was confronting the western world before the war.
Now I think this philosophy is quite wrong. I think it is a strategy of pessimism, tactics of defeat.
On the other hand many of the things that happened within the Labour Party, and the left of the Labour Party, from 1979 to 1983 were very much directed towards bulding that winning alliance which Hobsbawm himself says can only be won by repudiating the Labour left.
Take for example the powerful campaign in favour of women's rights, the campaign in favour of a change in policy towards Northern Ireland, or the open advocacy of policies designed to eliminate racism, and the attempt to establish greater police accountability. Industrial democracy, workers control.
All these ideas. which Here ad. vocated and debated within the Labour left, were ideas that if properly and passionately put forward would be alliancebulding ideas. And I personally for a very long time have seen the Labour Party as the true alliance of progress and have tried over ten years or more to get the Labour Party to open itself to affiliation other groups who represent different interests - the women : morement. ihe community groups and so on.
I think an awful lot of our prospects for success depend on whether we are prepared to pursue those areas of campaigning, and to remain absolutely openly committed to support people who are engaged in fighting on difparlamentary democrac! tends to be about. We can'i view things as if somehow a Labour government would be the kingdom of heaven on earth. A sort of quasi-sanitised revolution that when there is a Labour government it will be alright but until then things are going to be awful.
I think that in the category of preparation we have really to think very hard about one aspect of the credibility problem. This is not just that people don't trust politicians, but whether it is credible to present the answer to our problems as a solution dependent on the transfer of all power to the top. NL I think one of the reasons why loca: democracy is so relevant, and the question of workers control is so relevar.: and so on, is because there is an inherent distrust, based on experience. o the idea that somehow it will al! be icme in Whitehall. Therefore the resttan LOT of the traditions democracy which are expressed in :.: London campaign, and also expresies in industrial thinking through say ine Lucas plan are so important. This : where the preparatory element come: in. Here and now we are preparing re just to defend ourselves but also to tai : over, through democratic process ar. s enlargement of the democratic proces: In this context I think we have to git s an awful lot more attention to the idea of industrial entranchisement.
The term franchise is a funny word It means first the vote and also Cora Cola giving bottling rights to com. panies, but we should learn a lessor. from Mrs Thatcher. She has not tried to take over public enterprise and run it in