THE REACTION of sections of the press to the left wing at last week's Labour Party conference was almost frenzied. The Daily Telegraph on Friday carried the lead into its centre page analysis of events that its commentator had seen, 'Labour turned its back faith in the future on the rule of street mobs.' backward glances at constitutionality or legality, has opted for extra-parliamentary action and insurrection,' and that, 'When the main opposition party in the land turns it back on legality and democracy there is something rotten in the body politic.' While the Telegraph specialises in articles for retired colonels nevertheless the serious press also understood that something fundamental was going. on.
The Financial Times, in its editorial on Saturday, declared, 'The fact that Mr Scargill can win a personal triumph in Blackpool is bad news for Mr Kinnock the Labour Party, which looks more than ever like a rabbie. But it is also bad news for the government.
the title "The two parties of its Friday editorial column Blackpool', exoduce li that there was on one side the respectable right wing party of Kinnock and Hattersley, then 'the newer, restless, impatient the Scargillite party, which is 'strong in conference and growing stronger in the Even given Fleet Street's normal distortion hysteria something very fundamental did happen during the week. The Monday of Labour Party was best day the left in the Labour Party has had for a very long time. The miners WCIC backed. Police violence in the miners' on constitutional behaviour and pinned its The article concluded that, 'Labour, with few Astride as whoeheared denounced. Neil nock's attack on reselection was defeated for this year in all its forms.
The sheer power of this conflict makes it the greatest mass working industrial struggle since the general And out of it has emerged leadership which in Arthur Scargill's genuinely 'stands and Ignits It is not a revolutionary icaucismp. NOI Marxist leadership. • It is a the 1C L vul cauliary But it 1s a force which is authentically leading, and not following, the greatest direct working class mobilisation for fifty years.
However while the miners' overshadows everything else in its power nevertheless it is such force which is stirring the today. left which five years ago was around rupee still mainly constitutional reform, with only CND as a mass campaign driving beginning le take on quite a different Colorado!.
Miners What were the issues and groups which dominated the conference? First Ine miners. whole series of Parties in the big cities backed by unions, pledg1ng their willingness violate the law to defend services, jobs, and local government. Most important several of them meant Liverpool STabbed Party resting i can showed power on the resistance of an entire city.
Also fundamental for the future the fight Was over black sections, women's self-organisation the party, the demand for etfects dialogue with Sinn Fein.
Miners, the big cities women, gays. blacks, lesbians, , the Irish are not the 'middle class constituency parties or the 'bed sitter/ polytechnic lecturer brig ade' who the press like to They amount to the most HIUS powerful most oppressed groups in society.
NUM The NUM in particular set incredible record during the week. In addito its own struggle, which dominated the proceedings, the NUM backed illegal action on the cities, moved against Kinnock on reselection, backblack ported the demands of the Women's Action Commit tee and sent a message of solidarity to the Campaign for Gay Rights.
So much for the sneerings of the Guardian, New Statesman, their hangers-on in attempting to present the choice for the oppressed vanced middle classes the 'backward' workers. It was the most powerful industrial union in the country which took the most consistent posipressed week.
Finally there was huge advance solutely basic question for the tuture -that above all others les the Fleet Street press to foam at the mouth.
has for more unan a centur been une major country in Europe weight of philistine legalism parliamentary Cretism has been the greatest. Since Chartism there has been no mass current that rejected legițimacy of the bour.
state British equivalent to the Communist Parties of Europe or the anarchists of Spain.
Very slowly, extremely uneven v. this 1s beginning to change. What is developing in the movement precisely currents which base themselves on mass struggles and which do not accept that the law above all else, who do not accept that the violence of the working class is to be placed on the same level as the violence of the police and state. State The state was once well defined as claiming monopoly of the means of legitimate violence'. relatively large layer people are beginning not to accept that legitimacy on all issues. small longer prepared to accept its violence. Both developcompletely unacceptable capitalism.
'Scargillism', and all that goes with it, is not a current the bourgeoisie can accept a legitimate in British politics.
There should be strictly no exaggerating as to th size of what is developing. The types of left which are now cuncil in the movement minority — contrary to the fears of Fleet Street. The Labour conference boosted the left but it is still Kin. nock who remains in the saddle.
Kinnock controls the NEC cemented still more firmly his relations with the GMBATU, AUEW and other bureaucracies. He won fundamental political vic. tories the debates on defence economic policy 'he left, in short, is a culated at Labour Party conference -movement to sign it:
dustrial action by the National Union of Mineworkers to be an official strike. By collectively that this strike is official.
Signature Address Organisation When completed please send to Jane powerful minority. It can win on some individual issues but not yet take the leadership of the party.
That is going to be a ques tion of years of struggle before the position of Kin. nock can : overthrown Enormous tasks lie ahead of it.
But something very profound indeed did begin to take first shape at this vear's labour • Party conference. Fleet Street exag gerated the tempo. But it got the direction dead right.
THE FOLLOWING declaration was cir• with an invitation for other figures in the labour We, the undersigned, in our personal capacities but with the full intention of involving where possible the organisations we represent, do hereby declare the present insigning below we jointly repeat, with Arthur Scargill and the executive of the National Union of Mineworkers, the so-called 'contempt' of the High Court, by repeating Stockton, 31 Cranwich Rd, London N17.
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Declaration of contempt