ACTION • SEA GE NEXT! AT THE 1982 Labour Party annual conference Jim Mortimer, the then general secretary, introduced a report which called for disciplinary action against leading supporters of the Militant newspaper. The following year, at 1983 conference, the expulsions of the Militant editorial board were confirmed, and their appeals rejected.
At that time the party leadership promised there would be no witch-hunt. But here we are again. There is no reason to believe them now when they say it will stop with Liverpool.
You don't have to be a Militant supporter to get yourself attacked - just a critic. Up and down the country expulsions and threats of expulsion are being made against all sorts of comrades: Labour Briefing supporters, tivists, black section supporters, and After last Wednesday's NEC decision on Liverpool, the media were clear about the consequences. Well done, they re saying. 'You've made a good start with Militant. But what about the two MPs, and what about other left groups?' In time they'll end up expelling Eric Heffer and Tony Benn.
The majority of the Labour leadership appear to believe that a purge will clear a path to electoral success. Roy Hattersley claimed that the expulsion of the Militant editorial board would gain Labour a million votes. But the 1983 election was actually the worst result since 1918.
The report of the commission of eninto the Liverpool District Labour Party brings to light nothing new. But then no one criticised the party until the confrontation between the city council and the Tory government began.
The enquiry purports to consider the practices of the district party, using unproved assertion to imply they are undemocratic. In fact what the NEC wants to impose on Liverpool is a form centralism without Disbanding the party and imposing a temporary executive - which is all powerful because delegates to the district party will only vote in a consultative capacity until the party is reconstituted - is the real attack on But, in deciding that up to 16 members of the party wil have charges brought against them at the 12 March NEC, the real purpose of the Liverpool enquiry is brought to light. Reading the majority report you will see that the basis of those charges is support for the Militant newspaper. Whilst I am not a supporter of Militant or any other newspaper within the party, I firmly defend their right to be in the Labour Alongside the witch-hunting attacks being launched within the party, stage by stage, conference policy is pro. gressively being disregarded. On public ownership, for example, and the renationalisation of privatised firms. As if we can tackle unemployment without those policies.
It is the witch-hunt in fact which is the real attack on democracy - aimed at the left of the party as a whole. This would be an electoral disaster. The NEC must be flooded with protests - in sup. port of Liverpool and against the purge.