Manifesto- proof of 'left' prostration

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If the British working class now faces the acute danger of the return of a Tory government, a major share of the responsibility must fall on the shoulders of Labour's spineless 'leftwing"

After five years of tamely endorsing every spending cut, wage cut and closure, allowing Callaghan's Tory policies to alienate and demoralise thousands upon thousands of Labour supporters, the "lefts" last week put the seal on their achievements by accepting Callaghan's anti-socialist manifesto.

Echoing the disastrous Wilson manifesto of 1970, which ushered in 3½ years of the hated Heath government, the Callaghan manifesto can also be paraphrased as "Life's better under Labour; don't • let socialism ruin it"

It offers workers only more. of the same policies that have slashed living standards, jobs, social services and democratic rights, and lost by election after by-election over years.

Out are: free collective bargaining; nationalisation; any reversal of public spending cuts; any commitment to defend the unions against legal attack, and any pledge to abolish the House of Lords.

In are: further job-cutting collaboration between Labour leaders, union officials and employers; empty pledges on health and education; talk of unworkable price controls; further repression • and continued direct rule over the occupied six counties of Ireland; cynical pledges to raise child allowances, pensions, and burial grants; detence of Labour's appalling record.

Parliamentary The Labour Party has of course never pretended to be a revolutionary party.

In place of the independent mobilisation of the working class in struggle for its class interests it has consistently argued for peacetut, partiamentary reforms within capitalism.

But the chronic economic crisis of British capitalism, and the commitment of the entire Labour leadership to preserving the profitability of private industry, now means that this reformist party is sent into the 1979 election by Callaghan, stripped of even the promise of any worthwhile reforms.

Why have the "lefts" not come out openly in opposition to this?

The press reports of Friday's "Clause V" meeting on the Manifesto draft went to great lengths to suggest that there was "intense", even "bitter" debate over its contents. Some even suggest that Callaghan made some-undisclosed-concessions!

Yet in essence there is no real difference in approach Heffer between 'left' and right wing reformists. Both stand in fear of the independent strength and mobilisation of the working class. Both see the road to "socialism" as an exclusively parliamentary road.

From this standpoint, any attempt by socialists in the Labour Party to "rock the boat" or challenge Callaghan on the eve of an election is seen by both 'left' and right as unthinkablé ' sabotage of Labour's chances at the polls.

In reality such a struggle would attract thousands of workers seeking a fight against Callaghan.

But of course while the logic of Callaghan and the Labour right wing is unashamedly and consistently the Tory logic of defending capitalism and making it profitable-through using the mechanism of class collaboration in place of Tory confrontation-the lefts' no such coherent position.

Because they oppose any full scale mobilisation of the working class in struggles to the forcible expropriation of capital, but still seek credibility from militant sections of workers the 'lefts' have attempted to cook up an "alternative" position which is actually little different from that of Callaghan.

"National interest"

Their continuous nationalist call for import controls to "save jobs" in Britain at the expense of workers in other countries in effect lines them up alongside the weakest sections of the employers and creates-rather as Callaghan tries to create it-the illusion of a cross-class "national interest"

Their call for additional government spending through the National Enterprise Board is also a continuation of the Wilson/Callaghan strategy of huge subsidies for 'private industry-which can be carried out only at the expense of social services.

No alternative With no alternative strategy, and no coherent programme, the lefts' can do nothing but collapse at each decisive confrontation with Callaghan.

Their capitulation on the Manifesto confirms once again that the 'lefts' offer no ready-made alternative leadership within the Labour Party.

The struggle to defeat the Tories, return a Labour government and fight for the removal of the Callaghan leadership and the building of an alternative: socialist leadership must therefore be carried out. against many of these 'left' fakers.

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PHOTO: Chris Davies, Report PHOTO•