FRESH FROM the SDP-Liberal Alliance successes in the shire county elections David Owen has set out his terms for supporting a minority government if the next generai election should result in a hung parliament.
The county elections showed the long-term delcine of the Tory vote is continuing, and clearly demonstrated the roie of the Alliance in preventing such votes going to Labour. the Tories has again become a major problem for the ruling class, Kinnock is still not considered a reliable enough governmental instrument.
The long term decline of the Tories demands a permanent answer for organising ruling class politics - and the Alliance is that answer. It is an indispensable safety net for any decline in ThatOwen's terms for supporting government are clearly aimed primarily Labour Party. would have the right to exercise a veto over the Queen's Speech - the policy statement of an incoming government. The aim is to win a 'pact with the largest party on current polls — which would 'reflect majority opinion (i.e. ruling class opinion). It would agree a 'programme for national unity and prosperity. (i.e. would defend the interests of the ruling class.) Owen went on to state that if the Labour Party was not prepared to agree to the Alliance's terms they would form a government with the Labour's left wing, and so he is also demanding that the respective parliamentary parties should led parliamentary party were to make such an agreement it would have to disown, or whip into line, its left wing and any pretence to pursue policies which would be in the interests of the working class would have to be abandoned.
Owen is, in effect, telling the ruling class that respect they deserve. That means that they had The beginnings of a crisis in the Tory Party and the certainty that the Tories will be unable in this term of office to ensure a qualitative shift in the balance of class forces will give Owen's Finally the coming prospect of a major state funding crisis as North Sea oil revenues decline was explicitly taken up by Owen. In that situation government of national unity - a government which, as in 1931, would seek to resolve the crisis through attacks on the welfare state The Labour Party must respond to these moves by a forthright and unequivocable rejec tion of Owen's position. It must make it im mediately clear that there is no question that Labour from office through an agreement with the Tories Labour will organise mass campaigns against the policies pursued by such a government.
The Labour Party should not enter into a coalition with any capitalist party. But the real answer to the Altiance is for Labour to develop a programme that unites all sections of the working class and oppressed, and to campaign on those policies. to the needs of the overwhelming majority of the population.
The failure of Kinnock to support the miners, the moves by Kinnock and Hattersley for a new social contract, and the failure to put forward a radical programme to deal with unemployment all open the door to the Alliance. After ail, if there fundamental difference policies of the Alliance and those of Labour, what reason can there be to reject a pact with them? The left must take up the fight over against the 'unity renewed vigour. struggle today is that fight, or lack of it, against the Thatcher government. But the rightward drift of the leadership of the Party is vital both to that struggle itself, against the Alliance, and to the fight for a majority Labour government.
The decline of because Labour, even under The terms are that the Alliance - almost certainly Labour and that if the Alliance were to exclude between the policy behind Kinnock' line with The decisive divide in the class the fight against to the fight
The day The failure with Socialist Action 10 May 1985 THE YEAR long battle of the miners is continuing