began to chip away at the idea of the connection between the Labour Party and the trade union movement.
And again although that campaign was formally defeated the impact of it was very strongly felt and is still strongly felt. It was taken up as a theme by the Gang of Four when they Labour Party — a departure which was based on their hostility to an organic link between a political party and the trace won movemen.
The third bit of revisionism, which was attributable specially the Callaghan period, was when he wanted to centralise power in the party. This reached its climax with the imposition of the pay policy and the acceptance of the Monetary Fund economic terms (in 1976) — a decision which was brougni about by rying pickets from the international bankers who came to London and said that unless public expenditure was cut they substantially to each of them had their impact and each of them carried the support of a sizeable number of Labour Members of Parliament - some of whom of course defected to the SDP.
In parallel with these processes there were a number of other things that were happening. First of all there was Tons Crosland when Secretary of State for the Environment saying "The partv over'. Crosland himself, although a social democrat and supin 1976 that was a part of it.
Ali is furthermore true that when prime ministers, without necessarily telling the cabinet, accepted unilateral nuclear rearmament notably the Chevaline project - that was very signiticant. Because that reall undermined the Labour Party's claim to be the party of international detente and dialogue.
All these factors came to a head after the 1979 election when the movement — and I say the movement advisedly because it included the trade unions affiliated to the party as well as the constituency parties — resolved to do a number of things.
First to bring the policy of the party leadership back to the policies that the conference wanted l.e. lo be ln favour of public ownership and a planned economy. Secondly to continue to assert its opposition to the Treaty of Rome because would be an it up by the necessary democratic changes — changes which included the right of local parties to reselect their candidates; secondly to go for an electoral college which made the leader accountable to the whole movement and DOI just asecret ballot of the parliamentary group; and thirdly to attempt to make the manifesto the property of the movement rather than simply the property of the Prime Minister. the leader of the party, the shadow cabinet or whoever it had been before. The third point lost.
These changes, which involved in my opinion the renewal of the Labour Party, did clarify the situation to the point that a number of Labour MPs who had been out of sympathy from the early Gaitskell days right through to the end — I take Jenkins as an example but there were others of course as well decided to make a break with the party. And the mass media then used 1910 in my old constituency and found that retirement at 60, triennial parliaments and the abolition of the House of Lords were party policy ir. 1910.
What had happened was that there had been a shift to the right from pro. bably about 1949, but certainly from 1959, and in the last period the part! reasserted itself and re-established its claim to be socialist and expressed the determination to be more open and democratic. But the SDP, which had enormous media support, was able to do great damage to the party.
I think the second thing that happened during that period which contributed to our defeat was the support given by the parliamentary leadership to the Falklands war.
There is no doubt whatever that the war should have been seen by the party as being something wholly different from the way it was presented by the
Socialist Action 4 May 1984 prime minister. We should have opposed the task force — as some of us did. We should have demanded the UN solution. We should have argued for a quite different response.
But by not doing so first of all we araca crealonty to le jingoism lat Mrs Thatcher deliberately created. But secondly we fatally damaged our position as a party that believed in internadonal settlement of disputes other than by corce.
And I think these things, the process of renewal of the party - which was inevitably inward looking because had do destabilisation by the SDP and the media, and the jingoism released by Mrs Thatcher which we had not openly and clearly enough opposed which we had not opposed at all -unese unree actors contaouted to our However having said that, the programme itself did attract the support of eight million people - which is amas. ing considering what happened. And at kast we were defeated on a programme that would stand the test of time. If we had drafted the type of programme the SDP wanted we would have been defeated and lost our credibility for the future.
And I think as the months have gone by it has become apparent that this programme, far from being an exCame programme was an absolutely tasic minimum programme. And 1 canco: think of a manifesto of a party defeated in an election that had so Irity self-fulfilling elements in it.
Everything that we warned about the has turned out to be right. And of co-re after the election we proceeded, *::re new electoral system that we had coser. io elect a new leadership accountable to the whole movement. And that process can never be changed.
The reselection in my opinion cannot be changed precipitate the whole argument again in a way that is wholly unconstructive. The policy I don't believe can be changed but of course there is going to be a lot of discussion about policy and I'm totally in favour of discussion about future policy because we don't want to tie ourselves down four years before an election — allegedly four years before an election - to every detail now.
What will be important, and what is the of critical importance, is that whatever developments of policy are made they are made by the conference and are not erosions of the conference position or presented in some way as if there has been a new think without actually a new discussion and a new decision.
So protecting the rights of the conference to make the decisions. proteiung ine rignis or ine conege to elect lne leader, protecting the rights of the constituencies to choose their candidates and protecting the rights of all of us to defend ourselves — as with the miners, or Liverpool or whatever it happens to be between now and then - and the process of preparing for what lies ahead are crucial.
And I'm not just preparing for office, I'm talking about preparing for what lies ahead. These three elements of support and solidarity on the one hand, of discussion and democracy, and of preparation. These are the three tasks that we've got to undertake now.
And if we do that then I think we shall come through this period as the only serious and explicitly alternative to what is a very deep crisis in the capitalist system in Britain. because it would talking about socialist -by-election fiting into this pro cess of renewal? ow do you see the Chesterfiel