tion of the Labour Party's campaign document New Hope for Britain there has been a strong impulse on the left of the Labour Party to unite behind the document and to put on one side its fudgings.
Tony Benn, the acknowledged national leader of the Labour left, has been one of the strongest proponents of this view. In this interview, conducted with Phil Hearse and Alan Freeman on 14 The explains perspective for a Labour victory in the general election.
If there is a June election, can Labour win?
Yes we can, and it's yery important that we be confident.
Duelaulc. which we've hammerèd out over a long period, and in the possibility oi victory. A lot oi 'wet' voters are going to vote SDP and the Labour decided leadership and programme has got a good chance. ralkianas war Is over as a raclor, lo a very large extent. There is a very good cnance or willlllg In June...
think it's important should flave Corecuce popularity of our policies. 268 Liberals in Tottenham ioin the the their parliamentary their local council candidates.
I believe that the Labour Party is going to pick up enormous support from Liberal voters they are fed up with the fact that half their candidates have been defeated before the election begins by Jenkins and the deal with the SDP, and secondly because if the Liberals were to do well, what would be the effect? They would put back into power Roy Jenkins who has been the sort of Labour leader the Liberais have most disliked because he bureaucratic, centralistic, secretive, he wanted an authoritarian consensus society.
On the other hand a lot of Tory wel volers are golng lo say lilal we can peril ng Re conservative halues or vote Jenkins the present government just be a slightly milder form of con. servatism. It would be the conserVaLID li of MacMillan, Heath Churchill. So with a split Tory vote and a Labour vote augmented disatișfied Liberals, there's a good chance of winning.
If there's no overall majority after the and there must possibility of that pressure inside the PLP for a coalition with the SDP, and what will your attitude be?
Well I'm absolutely opposed to it. But I don't want to discuss it too much, for the reason that you don't go into a battle saying 'If we re beaten what will we do next?'.
Michael Foot himself has made Gea. and so has the National Executive, accepting resoluuons, lal Inere is no cuesuion of a coalition. If the Tories largest single party then that's their problem.
If we are the largest single party, we form a government our boncy. wetrylo zenouanae House and if it's defeated Tories, Liberals and SDP, we go to the country and win a majority as we did in March '66 and in October '74.
I'm sure that if we proceed on the basis of our policies that we could win support. So I'm totally opposed to any arrangement or coalition.
The his Confident in party with a think the that we We saw day with condidate and Partiv because Roy would encourage people to luCIL — that this was some way moderating broker for coalitions. was he was take your without imHouse of - it would you'll appeal to the people.
That's perfectly have been done in ing a Lib-Lab pact. nothing for the life of the government, govelllchl anything.
'79... be wil there be leadership which is those policies, jority on the NEC at present.
consistenl pessimism.
constituency sayıng ayere Is No artemnativer.
are the tion TINA bined just demoralise people and present happens if we don't win, happen if we do by the gramme isn't ment will continue demands, It's important to say that, not in the sense of anticipating a defeat, but in the sense that one of the things which vote SDP would be the belief of avoiding the iwo extremes' and it could be a influence being Well it has been said, but we're going for all-out victory on a programme which has been hammered out. So I point, you have to make clear you are going to put forward your programme in any case and if the Commons won't carry it over.
, pr instead of navThat pact did us, it simply prolonged without actualy QUIng And in my opinion it contributed substantially to our defeat in But there is a tremendous campaign underway in the party to restore the identified with and which has a maI know the line you are taking, which Deisioicill If I were to accept your argument I aiOLC policy. would quit. And the trouble is you are own left wing way There is the Thatcher TINA and the Socialist Ac- and both TINAs comAll the questions you ask 'What what will will and ine bro implemented all you're doing is spreading pessimism.
We're not pessimistic that the movewe are pessimistic of the to press its (oner response of the party leadership in the face of these demands.
Well look at Tatchell. It ended in tragedy, but he won — he beat the ExCCuLIVC. The trouble was that in ine process the leadership beat him.
And if you take the Militant argument. The Executive went to a huge victory at last' year's conference not on the basis that they would expel the five editorial board members, "they would dis-endorse all the Militant supporters who are candidates, they would get the sellers, and possibly they would go further and expel ten or twenty thousand people. Six months later Nobody's going to touch it. Because the movement is strong that even a right wing executive can't do it.
LOOK alue DOnCy lus olaev phrases of caution which I wouldn't have drafted in that way, but the main policy changes of the past few years are in place. You're not tellng me that is the way it would be drafted by the other side. debilitating effect not oreme, but a .cheer you're having other people.
You put down a motion at the NEC arguing against incomes restraint...?
The amendment I moved was accepted. The reality is that the trade union movement is not going to have government-imposed They know if they accept it again from a Labour government it will be used against them under a Tory government.
There will be pressure for it, we all know that, ocoalse Callaghan will still be a member of the House of that the allaghn vinu 41001 musun t that the of how government should behave has disappeared from the scene.
At the Scottish TUC there's a resolution which rejects all forms of in restraint even through a National Economic Assessment. The National Economic Assessment can be read any way vou like. Those who favour a pay policy will argue the National Economic such a policy. But having moved that amendment, the National Economic • Assessment is presented as an indica• tion that we'll have a Labour govern. ment with as close a relationship with organised labour as the Tories do with their backers.
understand the making but the general assessment is one of gloom. At this moment in the electoral cycle when you have an ab. solute duty to beat Thatcher, if you it's the difficulties, then you are actually assisting her prospect of victory. so There's another way that gloom ha: been spread, with people like you saying that the developments in the Tory party represent fascism. What worries us about this argument is that it could make people unduly defeating way to the fascism one should link anyone — for example the SDP — to defeat her.
I've never said Mrs Thatcher is a fascist.
period of crisis you have to study th deas oi lascism. Just as vou have t study the ideas of Marxism. If the left frightened of and what brings fascists to power wage you won't see that Mussolini to power-was exactly the ideas being put making it illegal to strike and so on. To say that you mustn't mention that for fear that the soft left will make an alliance with the SDP is ludicrous.
I've never said anything, like some wobbly elements in the Morning Star did, who think you have to alal-Cucul they have the same position on proportional representation. strength of the British working class movement that Bosite conclusion from the hoaliposite conclusion tionists.
Tony Benn ment?
document.
do women that a disrupt would be point you're with the policy.
through.
gloomy about Thatcher. It could pave the the together the argument that against with the What I did say is that in a colerend coalition discussing fascism tive thing what brought forward now about TWaY have an with the SDP because IL Wa ane defeated tascism In CND there's a lot of scepticism about the value of voting Labour. Is Britain really going to be nuclear free after five years of Labour governdocumenta osa i can undestand Now understand people being sceptical. But when they come to vote what are people going to vote and give lhatche! majority? Are they going to vote for the SDP which essentially agrees with • or are they going to vote Labour and keep the pressure up?
I've said before that if a Labour government is elected the Greenhan should double their conLulecul ounsc une bases Bume ac government will be much more amenable to pressure is a reflection of not only the conference resolutions but CND itself.
But what worries people for example is the statement that this would be carried out in such a way as tc exisuing alliances'. very difficult to do that.
That would then become an argument for not doing it...
Well it could be. All you're saying, let me sum it up for the benefit of the readers, is that there are people in the Labour Party who were in the '749 Labour government who don't agree I agree. But they ten per cent of the party. cha tes Tud agree ntot thel gy TUC agree But to ensure it is done the rank and worrying is that if it hadn't been for existence that go1 consituency parties to fight the witch hunt, we wouldn't today be talking about successes defending Militant. we now have people trying to organise in a similar mass campaigns, that th polcici manifesto, that the MPs are against in bodies like-Socialists for Labour Victory. But some on the left seem to be saying that noW ll would be seen as a divisive and disrup if the rank and file of the Labour Party were organised in this There are times for certain things After a defeat is the time for a postmortem, for policy and constitutional changes. But are you saying on the eve of poll we should all be sitting round discussing whether Peter Taaffe and Claire Doyle should be back in the The only difference, if there is one, is whether the internal discussion of these matters should be the dominant or the secondary question in the pre-election period. And I think the! should be secondary question.
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'Socialist Action supports a line of consistent pessimism'