our Panting peoR left is going to be forced to choose rather openly between its bloc with the right wing and its support for working demands.
into the core of the sott lett itselt. Liv ingstone has shown no sign whatever that he is going to retreat on women's, black or lesbian and gay demands - or black other This fight is going to extend right STATESMAN amongst 98nd now getting fairly intense because it is the LLL dominated constituencies that are delivering the goods for the campaigns inside the party not simply for the Campaign for Labour Democracy (CLPD) but also for the Women's Action Committee and the Labour Party Black Section.
Analysis of voting at last year's Labour Party conference showed that nine out of ten constituencies submitting resolutions supporting Black Sec. tions were hard lett' constituencies. roughly similar proportion exists for constituencies supporting the new ap peal for the election of the women's section of the NEC by the women's conference put out by the Women's Action Committee. In the run up to this year's • the LCC will be actively sabotaging the campaign for defence of In fact all this is provoking a major crisis for the LCC — and is why Stanley so vituperative In his attacks on Labour Left Liaison. For Stanley, the extreme right wing of the LCC. issues of women's and black demands were a convenient smokescreen behind of their energy into fighting the left. The right wing of the LCC never actually believed expected deliver something for women and black rights - the only thing it expected to 'deliver' was knocking left wingers off the NEC.
actually demanding delivery of practical support, and not resting content with verbal genuflec.
has exploded the entire plan of Strategy Furthermore the LLL's strategy is not based on some mci bally manucuvi The bringing together of Labour's tradi tional working class base - - represented by figures in the party such as Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner, together with the new movements of women and black people based on the enormous expansion of the working class since World War I!, is exactly the type of alliance which is needed to rebuild Labour as a mass. working class party today.
The soft left is disintegrating not because of internal party manoeuvres but because the essential principles the Group and Labour Left have tought tor are correct Naturally the politics of that campaign lett can be buit on and extended. But the indispensible nucleus around which the left in the party must