AGM these tactics produced a tie in the elections for the vote of chair. the Yollowing meeting the right wing succeeded taking the post of chair, vice-chair and secretarv bi a margin of about 10 out of 158 votes The defeated candidate for chair was Karen McCarthy, long standing DLP activist and prominent member of the local LCC.
Heady with success the with disbandment over not left winger Bob Whitehead's membership card In the midst of all thi the LCC held one of its regulal meetings. It was addressed by LU( Hulme. Apparently oblivious to what ing him. stressed the twin danger to the party of the hard lef and the right wing. of his audience seems, a little dumbfound.
KEN LIVINGSTONE is ticularly associated with the demand for unity on the left. Last month seven members of Labour Left Liaison and the Labour Coordinating Committee executive issued a statement opposing a pact with the Liberals and calling for unity on the left. Socialist Action asked Livingstone he Labour Party conference and why he stressed the slogan of left unity.
THIS is probably going to be the toughest conference for the left this parliament. The election campaign was professional which credibility to the party office. techniques were actually taken from Dioneered by the GLC, therefore by the left, but that won't be acknowledged. At the same time the vote at the election, because professional presentation wasn't filled out with real strategy or content, was bad - which will demoralise people.
Also, as yet, many on the 'soft left' don'tunderstand how far to the right sections of the party leadership are prepared to go. Therefore they do not yet see the need to recreate, on a principled basis, unity on the left and break off the bloc with the right wing.
It is therefore vital that the left doesn't get carried away by events at one conference but has a strategy for going forward over the next years This means looking realistically at the smuanon lial conronts us.
Media Capital, today, is completely committed to a Thatcher government. There was no wavering in any section of the media on this. This is why it is even more foolish than usual to base and moving turner teasie right. ess and moving further to the right. that will happen, as during the last - parnament, 1s tnat the press will praise right wing attacks on the left during ine ima-term years and unen, no mathow far the party moves to the right, turn round and attack Labour during an Meanwhile because Labour has attacked its own supporters, it will have demoralised a section of them and its vote won't go up enough to win an election.
Coalition This is when demands for coalition with the Liberals/new merged Alliance party, which are already be ing raised in the far seeing parts of th right wing, would come out in full flood. That approach won't win an election no matter how professional our preschlanion.
The truth is that if Labour had adopted a more left wing approach during the period leading to the last election - most obviously on nuclear power and women's rights — it would have done better.
Labour would not have won. The gap after 1983 was too great to make up in one election. But I believe we would have won 34-35 per cent of the vote, and won 50-60 seats instead of 25. Most important support wouldn't have been vulnerable to the scares by the press. constantly moving to the right we are building on sand and leave ourselves vulnerable to the types of attacks the Tories will inevitably run leading to an election.
The left must emphasise that a bloc with the right wing doesn't simply produce policies which are wong, but that it produces policies that are unpopular.
¿there is the danger of the same development as last time taking place par- !.. saw gives The La after this election. We can already see it on an issue like unilateral nuclear disarmament. This is where policy becomes interrelated with the situation in the party. Because the right keeps probing to find out what the 'soft left' will accept. Salami The right would not come out with its challenge on unilateralism until it was sure it would win on one member one vote (OMOV) - it didn't want to fight on two fronts at once. strenuously denied that it wanted to change policy on defence. right believes it has won on OMOV so It is re-opening the detence issue which Hattersley said he wasn't going to do. It is a pure and simple salami tactic which the right will continue to pursue as long as part of the soft left remains in a bloc with it, and as long as it is not confronted with a united left.
This reflects the real relation of forces in the party. The truth is that none of its three currents - the right, the soft left, or the hard left - has a majority. This is where I fundamentally disagree with who wrote in ribune recently that the soft left is now running the party and can do with it what it will. As Ani Marie rame Soft leat cane even Tribune the 'soft deliver party. At the last election it couldn't deliver on nuclear power or, on a real campaign for a national minimum wage. One right winger, John Cunningham, was able to effectively veto So it any central Labour campaign against nucical power.
Now the Bloc the party in a bloc with either the right or with the hard left. And many tually know it. Talk of 'going it alone' on the soft left comes chiefly from those who favour a right.
although he's not really part of the soft left at all, declared that for the hoices.
shadow Robin Cook take votes can't even on women's demands in the with Tony Benn!
because wouldn'i accept it.
The reality is the soft left can run or Dennis Skinner they're bloc with the adopted.
Jack Straw in the Tribune group, left' wing. cabinet he wouldn't take votes from the hard left. But he was careful not to add that he wouldn't either. unity.
Because if he had he wouldn't have got elected! So this section of the 'soft left' holds you can have an agreement with Roy Hattersley, or Gerald Kautman, but you can't have an agreement Members But the reality is this argument can't be presented openly in the party the party membership get members are discussing whether they are going to vote for David Blunkett whether VULC TOl David Blunkett or Gerald Kaufmann.
But the hard left must have different tactics to the ones sometimes Issue.
Sometimes sections of the 'hard left' seem to go in for 'social fascist' tactics — attacking those the soft left closest to them as the most dangerous. The result is the hard Socialist Action 25 Sept 1987 left isolate themselves. Instead the hard left should be looking, wherever it is principled, to achieve unity on issues with the soft left.
There are manv issues to do it on unionising temporary and part-time workers, on South Africa, on Central America, fighting racism, in supporting demands, The hard left and the soft left should be coming together or par ticular initiatives. The Women's AcCommittee is holding a conference in London in November on women's struggles and policies for example - which involves the hard left the soft left. The Coordinating Committee favours a policy calling for British withdrawal from Ireland in the lifetime of one parliament — and that should allow working together.
Differences I am not saying that people should gloss over their differences. I am not for example, because someone in the sott left disagrees with them because or Socialist Organisers disagrees with them.
The hard left is making a drastic mistake if it believes that refusing to • work logelner Wil 'expose the soft For something: like that. won't. If a right wing/soft left. bloc runs the party it will simply result in further defeats That will breed demoralisation and the strengthening of the right — not a growth of the left The hard left has to say to the soft left, 'Look there is a choice. You can either form a bloc with the right, which won't get us anywhere, or you can form a bloc with us'. It is only by unity on the left. that the Labour Par. ty and trade unions as a whole are going forward. The left is not built on defeats. It is built on victories.
The hard left sometimes has a cute wrong wew o war une so left' is. There are certainly some peo. Phemselves sore left who have decided to call for totally opportunist reasons. There are some 'straightforward right wingers who are doing a sort of entry work for the right in the Tribune group in parliament for example. But the great ma"jority of those who vote for "soft left' candidates in the party are on the left Opinion Various right wing members of the Coordinating Committee (LCC) may call down anathema on lett unity but members in tne part won't take it. The soft left represents a current of opinion in the party not a disciplined trend. The majority of its supporters in the party want left.
- not unity with the right. The Guardian or the New Statesman may specialise Sillcals planted stories, but eventually desire for left Provided, understands that what the рагу membership is interested in is not internal fighting but policies which take the labour movement forward Take an issue that concerns me — Ireland. We must have a battle in de movement, unfortunately, in orde t through the poli!
not taking up the issue 3: ziate I order to have a me: =377 prepared to have a fe: = = to get Britain our of Ireiani proach has to be applied :0 ==] It is only when the left put forward policies which correspond : IDe interests of the whole moremen ta it gets support. These are ie ison the left must absorb.
Socialist Action 25 Sept 1987
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