Sociaust Callaghan Defeat Tests

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A 4-3 margin won a demand for the introduction of mandatory reselection of all Labour MPs, and a similar majority put control of the party's manifesto into the hands of the National Execuzive Committee.

Hammer blow

Though Callaghan successfully repulsed a parallel move to take the election of the party leader out of the grip of the Parliamentary Labour Party these defeats have struck a further hammer blow at his authority, and marked a high point of the mounting crisis within the party.

Once again these developments in the Labour Party can be seen as a reflection of the growing militancy within the working class in the face of attacks by the capitalist class and a hostile government.

Last October the tenacious pay strike by Ford workers against the Labour government formed the backdrop for the conference defeat of Callaghan's wage-cutting 5% pay policy.

This year's conference took place in the context of continuing bitter pay struggles by 2 million engineering workers, ITV technicians and carworkers at Talbot and Vauxhalls, as well as a mounting mass movement in every area against the Tories' spending cuts, closures and assaults on basic rights.

Appear to lead

'Left' critics of Callaghan, who have recognised that if they aro not to ha cant scida hu are not to be swept aside by such a movement they have to appear to lead it, found themselves unable to back down on the constitutional reforms which they have offered as the panacea to resolve the crisis of leadership within the party.

The conference offered bucketfuls• of rhetoric against the Tory spending cuts, but voted down a motion that would have called on Labour councils to A lobby by the National Abortion Campaign on Wednesday demanded that the Labour leadership impose a 3-line whip on MPs to oppose the Corrie anti-abortion Bill at its Third Reading.

Skinner Indeed such is the feeling within the party rank and file and many trade unions that it seems unlikely the impending a "massive and vigorous" campaign of protest while Labour councillors up and down the country do the Tories' dirty work.

An emergency motion to this effect had been tabled by the Oxford CLP.

But the motion adopted simply called on Labour MPs to oppose the Bill, leaving reactionaries like Harold Wilson and others to follow their "consciences" into the Tory anti-abortion lobbies.

party inquiry can easily reverse these changes-though the right wing will energetically struggle to do so, particularly on the manifesto issue.

But what has been consistently left to one side is the question of what alternative policies the 'lefts' can offer to go into the manifesto.

Dodging action

Indeed while the press thundered its opposition to the 'left wing' reforms, the conference itself was avoiding any call to immediate action against the cuts, dodging any attempt to force Labour MPs to oppose Corrie's anti-abortion bill, ducking any challenge to Callaghan's statea oppositon to strike nanton adam i lo action designed to defeat or bring down the Tories, and squirming out of any commitment to nationalise major Perhaps the most wretched display of the lefts' inability Benn led the NEC appeals for conference to reject a motion committing the Party to nationalise the top 200• monopolies-arguing that they would not carry out such a policy. was passed calling for a plan for a "socialist transformation" along with the pledge to renationalise sold off assets without compensation.

would oppose mass industrial action designed to defeat or bring down the Tories before the expiry of their five-year "mandate"

While there was talk of action "inside and outside parliament" against the anti-union laws, it was plain that such actions are intended as nothing more than protests:

import controis to protect 'British' employers against 'foreign' competitors, and their defence of the NEB-which pumps government subsidies into private industry.

Like Callaghan, the 'lefts' see the road to socialism as one through peaceful, parliamentary reforms: they too fear the mass mobilisation of the working class in independent struggles that could rapidly expose their own hollow socialist rhetoric.

Beginning of fight

This is why Callaghan's defeats must be seen not as the end but the real beginning of the struggle for new leadership in the labour movement.

in stepping up the demanas on the 'lefts' to press home the victory by fighting for the removal of the Callaghan leadership and campaigning for alternative, socialist policies, workers can quickly test out these glibtalking 'socialists*