Socialis Benn's Tests Labour Left

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Squawks of rage from Labour Party headquarters, the Houses of Parliament, the Tory press and top union leaders are no bad thing. They generally mean that the right wing is under Last week's squawks arose after Tony Benn had well and truly set the cat among Labour's right wing ravens, Tribunite 'doves' and the vultures of Fleet Street.

His decision to stand against Healey for the deputy leadership of the Party has rudely disrupted the attempts by the right, the "centre" and the fakers of the Tribune Group to cobble together the fraudulent pretence of political "unity" on the basis of hollow anti-Tory rhetoric.

Benn's stand is a direct challenge to the growing arrogance of the party's right wing-now regrouped and organised in the ludicrously mis-named "Labour Solidarity" grouping.

Clique

Having dried their tears at the loss of Shirley Williams, Owen and co., this shady clique of shadow cabinet spokesmen and union bureaucrats has gone on a rampage against the policies and constitutional changes agreed at last year's Blackpool conference and the special conference at Wembley.

Dennis Healey in particular has gone even further and called openly for a new witch-hunt against the left within the Party, including the expulsion of supporters of the Militant tendency.

And in the absence since the January conference of a clear line of struggle for the Party's left wing, the "Solidarity" gang have seemed very much to set the pace of events.

Splitters

Indeed from the outset it has been the right wing that Ilas directed towards divisions and splits in the *Callaghan, having been defeated on policy and constitutional questions last October, resigned early to provoke an immediate leadership election under the old rules.

*The right wing PLP went ahead with that election, despite the appeals of the Party NEC for them not to do so. Foot won after a four-cornered fight in which the press backed Healey.

*After demanding that the left should support the outcome of the Wembley conference "whatever the outcome", Foot and the right wing, after having been defeated, at once declared their intention to overturn the decision.

*The most virulent right wing opponents of party democracy and socialist policies then actually. split from the Party to form the SPD-leaving behind them a large body of their co-thinkers.

*Since then Healey and Shore have been grabbing press headlines and touring Evans the country, arguing that the policies adopted by last October's conference are "unrepresentative" , publicly attacking them, and seeking to witch-hunt and expel socialists from the Party in order to "reverse the trend".

In declaring himself as a candidate for the Deputy leadership, Benn is not so much initiating new struggle in the Labour Party: rather he is at last offering leftward moving members of the Party a rallying cry and an issue around which to fight back against the right wing splitters.

He has particularly angered those who are fighting to reverse the Wembley conference decision, since he is now pressing home an election under the new rules -to take place the very day before Foot and his bureaucratic cronies make their bid to overturn those rules!

And he has annoyed union leaders, by making it quite clear that his appeal for support is directed not so much to them as top bureaucrats, but to the rank and file membership in the branches, and to the delegates to this summer's union conferences.

This is an important and positive step towards broadening out the whole debate on democratic procedures and the fight on policy and programme beyond the Labour Party itself, into the wider trade union and labour movement.

First step It is the first step by a prominent Labour left winger to build a left wing current in the trade unions and break from the customary manoeuvres and backstage deals that characterise relationships between Labour leaders and union bosses.

Such a turn is a particular. embarrassment to left' talking bureaucrats such as Non Heffer Moss Evans of the TGWU and Clive Jenkins of ASTMS who have repeatedly postured as strong supporters of Benn.

Now they have the choice of breaking from their right wing TUC colleagues and throwing their practical support behind Benn's campaign, Or standing exposed before their own members as allies of Healey and the right wing.

But it is not only the trade union leaders who find themselves put on the spot by Benn's stand: the same is also true of the bulk of the Parliamentary 'Tribune' group.

Once clearly the left of the Labour the Party, been Tribune group has more and more overtaken by the growing leftward movement of the party's rank and file.

Clinging to its friendly relationships with the right wing and the union bureaucraçy, the bulk of the Tribune group has remained linked firmly to the trappings of Parliamentary democracy: dozens of Tribunites joined with the right wing to condemn the outcome of the Wembley Conference and pledge to campaign for its reversal.

Now the Tribunites' outright opposition to any serious fight against the right wing is epitomised by the reactionary statements from John Silkin, and the rumbling threats from Eric Heffer to stand against Tony Benn in a deliberate move to split the left wing vote and ensure Healey's re-election.

A minority of left wing Labour MPs however-prominent among them Reg Race, Michael Meacher and others -have lent support to Benn's stand, and begun themselves to turn towards mobilising the necessary movement in the unions.

There is no doubt that Benn, for all his correct and wide-reaching criticisms of the right wing and of the record of previous Labour governments, has serious political limitations. 'Alternative strategy"

In particular he, along with many of his fellow left MPs, and the Labour Coordinating Committee, remains committed to the so-called "Alternative Economic Strategy" (AES) as a solution to the capitalist crisis.

The AES certainly contains some progressive proposals-including the expansion of state spending on useful public works.

But at the same time it is strongly infected by nationalism, with its strident demands for import controls to protect "British" capitalist industry against "foreign" capitalist competition.

Such a policy wrongly directs British workers to seek a common "national interest" with their own employers.

And indeed the AES is seen by its supporters as a means of reforming and restructuring capitalism in Articles on Britain rather than a strategy for the establishment of a planned socialist economy on the basis of nationalisation of the banks, land and major industry.

Socialist Press for this reason opposes the Alternative Economic Strategy (though on occasion OUr fight for partial and transitional demands may well bring us into a united front with supporters of the AES).

Disagree

And we also strongly disagree with Benn's position of opposing the fight for immediate industrial action to bring down the Tory Benn believes that this is premature step since "first" it is necessary • to change the character of the Labour Party and its leadership.

Such a view introduces a false separation between the political fight within the Labour Party and the development of the class struggle as a whole, and flows trom Benn's still Parliamentary perspective of the fight for socialism.

Bui despite these limitations, Benn's campaign against Healey offers to reinvigorate the struggle for socialist policies against the right wing within the labour movement in the next six months.

At long last a left winger has taken up a fight to defeat and remove the right. On this basis socialists should extend to Benn their firm but critical support.

Socialist Press calls on readers and supporters in Labour Parties and trade union branches to utilise to the full this new opportunity for a political campaign in which basic issues of policy and programme can be debated out.

Benn has set the cat among the pigeons: it is up to socialists to make sure within the labour movement as a whole.

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Socialist Press Edit Board statement Pag 'st '*,* 17; 4 Thursday April

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