THE CASE of Neil Kinnock and his EuroCommunist outriders is simple. They say Labour was defeated in the last general election because the party was divided by internal bickerings although the party had the right policies, it did not explain them in the language of ordinary people.
Their answer is to build a socialist party of the Western European type, acceptable to all layers of society. Neil Kinnock is the person to deliver this message. All those who cast doubt on his annunciation now declared to be outside the mainstream of the left.
All this is given leftist respectability by the i Eric Hobsbawm 'the most -sagacious Marxist scholar' according to Kinnock. Produce But the problem is not correctly analysed, nor will it produce a Labour overnmen replace Thatcher. And the left wil suffer grievous blows if they bend realities'.
Thatcher won the last because of her strategy using North consumer spending. Her image of forthright determination was enhanced and perhans created by the craven retreat of the maOLLY leadership of the labour movement.
The saying that the appear because we on our KICES 12 been applicable. This contrast to the LUCILICI of were thrown to the right by the IMF and then proceeded to reduce living most savage way this century.
It was the attempt by the left to ensure that Labour never again would go through the perience. This did not Phil Hearse reports from Brighton resut popularity. decline in the opinion polls only started when the right turned against decisions of conference and began their campaign of sabotage.
Banks The policies of the parKen were inadequate. As Livingstone has pointed out they did not contain the vital element of an attack on the bastions of wealth and power in this •country the banks.
Those policies which did present a radical alternative to Thatcher - such as unilateral disarmament leadership elections need covered up some interesting facts.
the deputy contest.
Looking first at the leadership there is no doubt that Eric Heffer's 6.3 per cent of the total electoral college is a Let Bar Metre sure ed But suffered from the tactics of the left Ilsell.
In the trade unions he was virtually wiped out. In the CLPs in many places he was running a close second to Kinnock but close seconds not recorded in the vote, only victories. Assuming that 620 constituencies voted, Eric must have received the vote around 4l as opposed to about 10 for Hattersley.
In scores of constituencies the left was split between Kinnock and Heffer, but in most the Heffer sup porters remained a minoriwere compromised contradicted by the right wing leadership election campaign Furthermore Kinnock is lying when he says that he agrees file policies contained in the As already proven by the pro and one camoren ing for a Fairer document. their intention is first to blur and then to junk policies like withdrawal from the Common Market Finally the creation of along Eurosocialist lines will 'irritate the bourgeoisie satisfy the workers' as Trotsky said of LCUL Ramsay MacDonald's ER The 'dream ticket' takes charge — in order to prepare right turn THE STATISTICS of the leadership and deputy careful interpretation before conclusions are drawn. By giving all results as a percentage of the total electoral college, the tellers But even these opaque figures don't conceal the enormous Kinnock victory — and the fact that Michael Meacher got less votes in the constituencies than Roy Hattersley in allocating a case maybe for constituency votes according to the proportion received by each candidate in each constituency.
Eric Heffer dia best paradoxically, the Parliamentary about 30 MPs voted for him as opposed to about 53 for Hattersley and 100 plus for Kinnock.
Most of all the Heffer campaign suffered the failure of even section of the 'hard' left to rally round his campaign. . Tony Benn, for example, kept almost silent for a long For leader. Schere nee leader. Meacher mained silent throughout, but emphasised his affinity with Kinnock.
The tactic in the Benn camp was to keep Heffer at arms length, and stake the 1920s. Professor Hobsbawm prefers learn nothing from the ex. perience of the rightward shifts of the Mitterrand gone grent of the right growth of the right except we should that repeat experience here. Left The Bennite left must reject this line of argument. Instead it must draw its own balance sheet of the disastrous tactics it has followed since the notorious Bishop Stortford agreements. it musi stop thinking that it can win through such everything on a big vote for Meacher. This tactic blew . LU for obvious Having allowed the Kinnock steam roller through unopposed, the Benn camp was completely disarmed when Kinnock turned on Meacher made it clear to the whole world that he much prefer red The ret result of this that Meacher didn't even beat Hattersley in the constituency section massive reversal of the Benn-Healey result two This should be a ycals ago. lesson to the left — • that you can't deal with fundamental problems by means of a manoeuvre. Loving up to Kinnock resulted in a kick in the teeth.
Still, there were some DOSHIVE Michael Meacher's camDespite his failure to win the NUPE vote, on a branci block received 209,000 votes. In COHSE, the vote split 50-50 between Meacher Hattersley. This: means that tens of thousands of low paid manoeuvres and organise itself from top to bottom.
The organisation of the minority who voted for Heffer and Meacher in the Party and trade unions, will soon draw to Is side inose who voted for Kinnock under the illusion lat would keep the party on the left.
On this basis the left can rebuild itself, as a vital ing the fight against the Tories. It will be the defeat of the Tory government allacks the working class and the oppressed from which a renaissance of Labour's prospects will COnC • 10 rhetoric of Neil Kinnock.
workers voted for him.
His eventual failure to get the TGWU vote was doubtless a result of the late 'dream ticket surge' More disappointingly still, the 6-1 vote against Meacher in the coalfields shows how deep the 'unity rhetoric has gone One last the results must however be made The results of those candidates who have made 11k genuflections towards the left at al Shore the leadership elections and Dunwoody and Davies in the deputy leadership, elections were absolutely appalling.
Peter Shore failed to get a single constituency vote, and probably didn't come second in more than a nanalui cluel Vırtually all of his 3.17 came from the PLP Without the votes of 20 or so MPs he would have received 0.033 of the electoral college. These figures show far the right wing has to go to reassert dominance. _ problem is that Kinnock looks likely to give them a helping hand.
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SociAlist ACTiON
...and the failure of the Meacher tactic