BRIGHTON, England—Tony Benn, leader of the Labour Party's left wing, lost his bid for the post of deputy leader by a mere whisker September 27, during the opening day of the Labour Party conference here in Brighton.
The right wing then went on to try to consolidate their hold over the party. But the specter of Benn hung over the entire proceedings. Maneuvers by the right cannot exorcise the deep class polarization going on in Britain, which is the context of the fight within the Labour Party.
Under the old system whereby the election of the party leadership was solely in the hands of its parliamentary caucus, Benn would not have stood any chance for election at all. But in January, as part of the fight of the left wing to democratize the party structure, a new-style electoral college was adopted which reduced the vote of the parliamentary caucus in electing the party leaders to 30 percent (see Intercontinental Press, March 9, p. 207). The trade unions were given 40 percent of the vote, and the local party organizations were given 30 percent.
'This is only the beginning'
In the new-style electoral college Denis Healey, candidate of the right, took 50.426 percent of the vote as against 49.57 percent for Benn. But, as the London Guardian reported, "it was evident that next year's campaign had begun within a few seconds of the declaration."
Benn himself declared after the election that it is "quite clear that the forces of democracy and socialism cannot be stopped in Britain." He told a meeting of cheering campaign workers, "This is only the beginning, and not in any sense the end."
The maneuver which gave victory to Healey was the action of forty-nine "left" members of Parliament. These had voted for a third contender, John Silkin, in the first round and then abstained on the vital second round. If just four of these MPs had voted for Benn he would have won the deputy leadership position.
Benn's defeat and the subsequent vote reversing the left-wing majority on the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC) has given a boost to Labour's right wing. They will now go on the offensive.
But when Benn announced his bid six months ago he was called a "no-hoper." The narrowness of his defeat shows the pressure of the radicalization of the working class-—a radicalization that can only deepen in face of the catastrophe visited upon the workers by Margaret Thatcher's Tory government. The right wing's room for maneuver is therefore fairly narrow.
Left policies reendorsed
Gains by the right wing at the Brighton conference did not break out of the framework of the constitutional changes and programmatic advances previously registered by the left. It is useful to recall that after their drubbing at last year's party conference the right wing established as its aim the total reversal of the left's gains (see Intercontinental Press, October 27, 1980, p. 1092). This is no longer even considered a practical proposal, let alone an immediate target.
Within this framework it would be a big mistake to discount the continuing power and influence of the right wing. The right has consolidated its positions, but the party itself remains committed to left-wing policies.
The party conference confirmed a whole series of left policies and recorded some advances:
• By almost a two-thirds majority, the Labour Party reaffirmed its commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament. It opposed Cruise missiles and Thatcher's plan to acquire Trident submarines, and called for the closing of all nuclear bases on British soil. On a show of hands, even the call to withdraw from NATO appeared to pass, but this was reversed in a card vote which records the weight of the unions. Still, 1,619,000 registered their opposition to NATO-about one-third of the vote.
• For the first time in recent years, conference came out again against any form of wage restraints. Yorkshire miners leader Arthur Scargill summed up this move when he declared in the debate, "Until we live in a socialist society there can be no question of an incomes policy."
• Conference agreed that the next Labour government should "bring into public ownership the commanding heights of the economy," but a more precise resolution calling for the nationalization of the banks, insurance companies, and finance houses as well as the big monopolies was lost on a card vote.
• Against the advice of the NEC, a resolution was passed calling for a campaign for a thirty-five-hour week, the lowering of retirement age, and a systematic ban on overtime, plus other measures to combat unemployment. The executive was instructed to ensure that all young people got the right to a real chance to work.
• The party was pledged to a massive campaign against the Tories' new 4 percent wage limit in the public sector, the expected Tory antiunion legislation, and the attack on local council spending levels announced in the course of the conference.
This decision was especially significant, as it was passed over the objections of the presiding committee, with instructions to it to mobilize a mass fightback against these Draconian Tory measures. This was a stinging rebuff to the Parliamentary spokesperson, who had strongly disagreed with such "defiance of the law," which everyone agreed was involved.
• The conference was pledged to repeal of the Tory Nationality Act and other racist legislation, including the 1968 and 1971 immigration laws which Labour governments had previously implemented with gusto.
• On Ireland the conference ended bipartisanship with the Tories and came out for eventual unification of Ireland for the first time since the establishment of Northern Ireland. More significantly perhaps, it committed the next Labour government to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Recently the overwhelming bulk of Labour MPs had backed the renewal of this police-state law in the House of Commons. Two left-wing resolutions calling for withdrawal of troops and calling for support for the demands of the Irish nationalist hunger strikers were defeated, although the weaker of the two received 702,000 votes.
NEC wins say over election manifesto
So the gains of the right at this conference represent more of an organizational coup than a right-wing political victory. This of course gives the right a much better platform to try and reverse the leftist advances of recent years. Very quickly they will go onto the attack and try to undermine support for left policies.
Militants need to be prepared to fight back against this. Insofar as the right wing denies in practice party policies it will help to advance the determination of the rank and file to assert its control.
But the left developments of recent years are only reflections of the growth of the radicalization of the class. Turning back the new generation of working-class militants as they probe into the Labour Party and seek ways to control their leaders will only be possible on the basis of a real defeat of the class. But all the signs for the winter point to the opposite: to the defeat of this Tory government in the new wages round, and to the conditions being laid to bring it down.
The real situation was graphically revealed in the voting to take the power of writing Labour's election manifesto out of the hands of the parliamentary Shadow Cabinet and give the final say to the NEC. This proposal was the one outstanding constitutional reform sponsored by the left, which had up to now not been adopted. On October 1 this was passed by a card vote.
Despite the right-wing majority now in the NEC, this sent the right into consternation. A quick maneuver insured that in the subsequent vote to put this into the constitution, the shopworkers union (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers-USDAW) reversed its decision and the motion was therefore lost.
The left therefore comes away from this conference not defeated but in fact more clear about the need to organize to remove the bureaucratic leaders that still occupy the key positions in the unions and the Labour Party. Such a clarification was also made in relation to a number of left-wing leaders:
Union democracy is central
It is now clear that the central question for the Labour Party is the issue of union demo-
It is not simply the ability of a union like the shopworkers to cast completely contradictory votes within a few minutes. It is also a matter for some of the left-wing-dominated unions. The National Union of Public Employees (NUPE), for instance, which on paper endorses all the policies sponsored by Benn, cast its 600,000 votes for Healey in the deputy battle. This is because its "sounding" in the membership revealed majority support for Healey after the leadership had refused to make any recommendations on which way members should vote. Little wonder the nominee of the Tory press carried the day.
Equally, militants will be questioning the leaders of the left-wing-dominated Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU).
Although this union eventually cast its 1.25 million votes in favor of Benn, it played havoc with union democracy in the process. Again, the TGWU supports all the policies advocated by Benn, but despite this, a move at its national conference at the beginning of the summer to vote on which candidates to support, where Benn would have been endorsed, was bureaucratically quashed. Acting general secretary of the union Alex Kitson then went on a wild crusade against Benn standing at all.
Little wonder that the "consultation exercise" produced a majority of branches in favor of Healey. (Although the actual numbers represented by the branches saved the point for a Benn majority.) In the event, the union delegation followed the recommendation of the executive to vote for Benn, but only after casting their votes in the first round for Silkin, who had not even received a mention from the membership.
So the conference ends, but the battle hots up. It is still open whether Benn will stand again next year, although it is exceedingly likely that he will.
If this conference has shown anything, it is that the battle cannot be won by the left solely within the framework of the Labour Party. Benn is backed by the overwhelming majority (that is, 83 percent) of the constituency parties. It is in the unions, and particularly in the big industrial unions, where the battle will be decided. And here, in the next twelve months, we will see the fight hot up, the polarization increase, and the whole issue go onto a higher political level.