Lefts Sht Wilson Out Wilson

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SLL on Lambeth Trades Council lobby of Parliament against Wilson's pay laws, 1966. //S17 THE THE IS FIGHT defeat the prices and incomes legislation, "support the 1966 seamen's strike, and prevent the anti-trade union legislation.

No other political tendency whatsoever was able to camapign in this way... every one of them... opposed... building the independent revolutionary party; every one of them considered it 'sectarian' to oppose the Labour government as a capitalist government; they all collaborated with the Stalinists to denounce our initiatives in 1965 and 1966 against Prices and Incomes Bill, against anti-union legislation, and to make the "left' MPs fight, as premature and sectarian". (Reform or Revolution? 1970 p5)

The 'initiatives' Slaughter refers to here were not simple sloganeering, but real struggles carried into the workers movement by the SLL. In 1965 and 1966, around the banner of the Lambeth Trades Council, powerful interventions were made by the SLL against Wilson's first pay laws, which resulted in the TUC suspending Lambeth Irades Council. In the fight against Wilson's anti-union laws, the SLL spearheaded the fight, itself calling for a strike on May Day 1969 which eventually forced the Stalinists to support and resulted in nearly 900,000 workers stopping work.

Both the Young Socialists and the SLL were able on several occasions in this period to carry out the Election Manifesto of the WRP had only this to say on defence of living standards: "HALT RISING PRICES. Nationalise the food monopolies and the supermarket chains without compensation under workers control. Abolish the speculative commodity markets".

This "policy" which raises almost as many questions as it answers, and which can only be regarded as a utopian proposal divorced from any means of achieving_lt (who is to do the nationalising!) is sharply answered by the SLL's 1965 Manifesto : "Sliding Scale of Wages: Over and above all wage settlements, all employers must compelled cost-of-living bonuses to ensure that wages are not left behind prices. This policy is the only way to solve the 'prices' question in the interests of the working class. Committees of consumers, along with the trade unions, must be responsible for deciding a realistic cost of living index" [emphasis added] Funnily enough, the SLI in 1965 saw protection against rising prices without even mentioning nationalisation!! But the 1965 policy is certainly far more relevant and tangible to the working class than 1974's abstract demagogy. **