Bringing it all LAST WEEK'S local government results showed a strengthening of the position of the Labour Party. But these changes in Labour's fortunes are taking place within the context of big events -reaction to the US bombing of Libya and to which are revealing an important clarification within the left wing of the labour moveWhat is happening is that a common agenda is beginning to be hammered out, an agenda that goes beyond the constitutional reforms achieved at the beginning of this decade, and beyond the unity which was created around support for The key elements of that agenda for the left developments will come together at the Labour Party women's conference this weekend.
The first is the development of the demand for the withdrawal of all US bases from Britain. From being a fringe issue this has now been passed by both the Scottich TUC and ASTMS conferences. With the Campaign Group, CND and others campaigning on this within the party, for the first time the whole issue of the bases is going to be raised at this year's conference with a serious minority supporting it. This is a real step forward for the left.
The second issue, tied to this, hostility to the war drive against Nicaragua and other countries threatened by the United States laboration with the apartheid regime in South Africa. The demonstrations against the attack on Libya represented a real step forward for CND. nuclear war and the siting of cruise missiles in Britain, but also opposition to Reagan and Thatcher s attacks on semicolonial countries.
months of struggle in South Africa have raised consciousness and action on this to a quite new The liberation of Britain's oldest and closest colony, Ireland, is also beginning to get a small fraction of the attention it deserves. This year's National Union of Students conference for the first time committed a mass organisation in Britain to British withdrawal from Ireland.
Put these development and others together against nuclear weapons and you get a mighty sections of the labour movement.
The other area of advance, also linked to this, is the dramatic rise of women's and black selfIt is noticable that Kinnock has so far had no success at all in rolling back this tide and mainAdvisory Committee -a bantustan aimed to head off Black Sections -is already in deep trouble and significant votes in favour of black self-organisation in the unions are being racked up at the summer union conIt remains to be seen how far a similar exercise aimed to head off women's demands within the party put forward to this year's Labour Party Finally, the new element which has been introduced is the massive opposition to nuclear power. This already had a majority at last year's conference. It is likely to get close to the two-thirds majority it needs to go into the manifesto left which is pushing this forward against the Kinnock leadership.
There are of course no grounds for easy optimism in the party. The witch-hunt is still going on. There is as yet no economic policy which is both a real solution to the crisis and generally accepted on the left — although some gains such as support for a national minimum wage are being through a severe defeat at Wapping. debacie as regards organising left slates for this But what is clear is that while six months ago the left was very isolated and on the defensive, today it is moving out of that isolation and taking the initiative in a series of key areas. A certain It would be foolish to be over optimistic. But, for the first time in a while, the left is begining to hostility to British and US coland sentiment amongst important LAST THURSDAY's local government and by elec'gang of four' broke from the Labour Party to form the SDP. Opposition to the Thatcher government was shown everywhere. Alliance continued to play its appointed role of trying to head off a majority Labour government. JOHN ROSS looks at the election results and their political impact.
The single most striking feature of the election results for Labour, and the most important LUC future, was the consolidation of its support in the big cities and the driving back there of DOLE the Alliance challenge and the vote. Equally Alliance smashed into the Tory vote in the rural areas this being shown particular v dramatically the two parliamentary by-elections.
Taken overall the Tories lost 705 seats in the local government elections disastrous result.
Labour gained 484 seats the 270. Labour gained control of 17 local councils. Detail If the results are looked at in detail they show that the situation in local government is now becoming almost catastrophic for the Conservative The Tories now control only half as many local councils as Labour for Labour and 46 for the Tories Of the 36 Metropolitan districts Tories now only control 1 Solhull West Midlands. In terms of government the Tories are rapidly becomIng a secondary, • even fringe, party This process has gone even further in certain areas ol the country, where the Tories already literally fringe party in local politics. In Scotland the Conservatives received only 16 per cent of the vote compared to 44 for Labour and 18 per cent for the Scottish National Party (SNP).
In Liverpool the Tories received only 13 per cent of the vote. In the North West of England only a Macclesfield. is controlled by the Tories. Advance If Labour advanced strongly in the big cities, however drasticaily into the Tory the Alliance cut vote in the suburbs and the rural areas and here Labour did not advance to une same degree. Ine mos dramatic expression of the Arance availe or course was in the two Parliamentary by-elections.
In West Derbyshire the Tory vote fell from 56 per cent in the general election to 40 and they held the seat by less than votes the In Ryedale the Tory vote fell from 59 per cent to 41 per cent, and a majority the general election was turned into an majority of 5,000.
But the Alliance also advanced strongly in the prosperous suburbs in the - when the But the SDP/Liberal Richmond, Sutton. In council. advances came in Sussex, years. With Liberal nearing the local government the support the was the eleccalculations the same pattern -the cent.
an overall on Thursday's results despite false claim that elections course for hung This still more as the it, and of the bourgeoisie set for itself TWO editor, of Financial Joseph. Biffin inner city industrial This of North, the local government results the three the Tower right candidates the has U W the were Lambeth left was scals Ul 53 to 54.
vilification carried out Derek the city an exIn Bernie Grant his mathe loca where were disqualified, The Gains and losses of seats in local government elections 1983-86 1983 1984 Tories + 128 - 131 +37 + 46 +143 Party control of local councils in Britain Labour control No overall majority Conservative control Alliance control Source: Calculated from Financial Times 10 May 1986 noted its that while voters were strongly between : Hatton and his fellow Militants will give the advocates controlla ing strikes was also clear. did London areas.
The SDP education spokesperson Ms Anne Sofer lost her ILEA seat in Hampstead and Highgate. Bubbles Polyer, leader of the All London Parents Action Group which had backed the teachers their strikes won an ILEA surcharged qualified COULI T cillors, was elected to IL EA. Disaster The elections were of course universally regarded in the press as a disaster for the Tory Party. But as regards the political imthe Financial trees he results noted: y after the results noted: the government has in the end got many of the big things right coming to terms with Europe and the conquest of inflation or daring to tackle the Irish question it has made a lamentable of SUIC of tilt smaller ones. It spent an of allulll parliamentary time on the relatively business of the abolition of the metropolitan (large scale urban) authorities Greater London Council.
Pressure 'During the Westland affair, which led to the resignation of two cabinel ministers, the government It then backed down from its nans to dispose of Bi the Americans because • pressure roul owi backbenchers The conclusion of this analysis would of course consider the possibility a government which maintained the "big things' of Thatcherism but 1985 1986 1983-86 - 55 - 705 - 763 - 32 + 484 + 535 + 129 + 270 + 652 Source: Calculated from Financial Times 10 May 1986, Prior to After Change 1986 1986 elections elections + 17 +11 +3 allowed some adjustment of the 'small things'. This is of course the perspective outlined by the SDP and • votes and the recovery of Labour, there has therefore been increasing discussion in the press recently of the desirability coalition as an alternative to the Tories after the next electior cannot recover her vote editorial entitled 'The unTory majority' on 1 Mar'Labour is not a mass party and never will be agail. ...if Mr Kinnock is as keen on power as he says, he should be telling his party that the days of splendid Peter Kellner, the 'This week, the fifth SDP tribal than significance Left -of warConservative the clear.
tion. the represensections the The bigvote for tion will the biggest Thatall for coalition, blow to the an equally successes gainHaringe Lambeth
EVEN AMONG an biscuit. He was the person who headed the front bench attack on against rate-capping.
atomic power lobby in the Labour Party been openly defying conference policy to do so.
The policy on nuclear wower vasseu v (LaDOlI Party conference last year, for the first time, WaN crystal clear. unequivocably called for halt to the nuclear power programme and a phasing out of all existing plants'.
That position received over 60 per cent of the vote only five per cent short of the two thirds majority needed for automatic inclusion in the party's programme.
But Cunningham immediately and openly went defy VUl policy — using his job as Environment spokesperson The December 1985 issue Fuels paper, Nuclear BNFL following THE GOVERNMENT in now mobilising all its propoganda to convince people that British nuclear power is safe, that a Chernobyl could never happen here. Linked to that the government is playing down the reality of Chernobyl itself. PAUL ATKIN looks at the real impact of Chernobyl and why it could, and probably will, happen here.
LORD Marshall of the CEGB remarked that Chernobvi's effect on health would be no worse than smoking an extra tuo cigarettes vear. Peter Minister unpopular and right wing Labour front bench John Cunningham takes the single handedly the struggle Now he is heading the pro- and has statement by Cunningham: 'The Labour Par. ty has supported the development civil nuclear power for decades.
conterence decision won't change this and I don't expect it be inmanitesto.: cluded the next In the 18 April issue of Cunningham returned to the attack replying paper's call for the 'phasing out' one power Cunningham strongly argued support nuclear power. He said it now supolied 18 per cent of electric power. He stated:
'In Britain alone, the civil nuclear power industry employs directly and indirectly some 150,000 people on 1y major sites all been moved out of Kiev, 60 miles away:
The land surrounding the plant up kilometers away is reckoned to be contaminated for decades. To bring it back around the countly. provides about 15 per cent of all engineering apprenticeships. The industry is rany amonseu.
The real reason for Cunningham's varucular vehement personal defence of power well know. lucical He is the MP for Sellafield. Cunningham argued 'protect said:
as an example the COSurE Sellafield in my consultency. where 11,000 workers are directly affected. allu many again indirectly.' Cunningham's position is a disgrace. First the the health of the entire community takes precedence over the alleged threat to the jobs constituency let une threet right wing MP. What Cunningham should be arguing planned happen. The industry 'calculates' the against it as one accident CYCL / 10.000 vears of reac tor life. But Chernobyl survived for just ten years, not 10,000.
Accidents of the type that finally culminated in Chernobyl alc tact not unusual. In 1967 a near melt down at the enricc Fermi I plant in the US led the OlIC nucical make the cucuccis creation of replace the jobs Sellafield to processing plant But in fact clearing up the incredible Sellefield would itself thousands workers for many years. With even the smallest bit of planning there is necessity whatever for fall in employment even in Cunningham's constituency although that is not the main point.
real pomt Is Ellal the nuclear power industry threat everybody including Sellafield.
policy must be full reaffirmed strengthened. must be committed to the elimination of all nuclear power during the lifetime of one parliament. And a first step to restoring any credibility of the Labour this question is the dismissal of 'atom Jack' Cunningham from his position on the Labour STOl DELCH mean a casualty rate form a serious nuclear accident at ten times the rate for the USA. • lavior of the Political Ecology Research estimates that Chernobyl type disaster in would lead to between 10,000 and 180,000 deaths.
Nor is there any reason to believe that evacuation and safety measures would proceed significantly more smoothly in Britain than in John Cunningham average.
The best wav to assess the effect of Chernobyl on radiation levels across the whole country is that brought them up to just below the 'normal' levels of radiation at Sellafield and that part of the Irish sea close to the Socialist Action 16 May 1986 plant Don't scream Organise. • See - 'The deadly dust' pIo.
----- pull-quotes -----
tions were the biggest electoral defeat suffered by the Thatcher government since 1981