EDGES LEFTWARDS
LONDON, March 15 -- The Fiftieth Annual Conference of the London Labour party «- the largest and most powerful regional organization of the British Labour party -- was intended as an election demonstration. It fulfilled just this role, [For the implications of the London local elections this year see World Outlook March 6.]
At the same time the leadership had to use a gentle hand with the most determined demands of the rank and file. The desperate shortage of low-cost housing and the recent bitter rent struggles were reflected in eight resolutions ~- four from Constituency Labour parties and four from trade-union district committees, These were combined into a ten=point programme, which included demands for the re~introduction of legislation, repealed by the Tories, giving tenants security of tenure and a semijudicial procedure for the control of rents. This was followed by demands for protection of leasehold~ ers, reduotion of interest rates on loans for housing to two per cent, more vigorous development of Council Direct Labour schemes to keep profits on public housing out of the hands of private builders, severe limitations on commercial building and requisition of decaying and empty properties, The tenth demand was for “the public ownership of all land in London,"
At the beginning of the debate it was believed that the Exeoutive
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would ask the Conference to remit the motion for further considera~ tion, particularly because of the tenth démand, The debate made this impossible, Wherever the chairman looked he could find no one pre~ pared to stand up and attack a single point in the motion, Delegate after delegate, many in their early twenties or late teens, who themselves faced the problem of where they could live when they married, came to the rostrum to paint the lurid picture of the housing needs of the London workers and to register support for the ten points,
One young woman from Hackney was loudly cheered when she turned to Labour party leader Harold Wilson, who.was visiting the confor~_ ence, and told him that if he was worried about the cost of public ownership, then the answor was confiscation, not capitulation to the situation, Another delegate, from Wandsworth, drew another cheer from the normally stolid delegates, when he claimed that the advocacy of the public ownership of land was infinitely the most offeo~ tive way of converting three-quarters of the people of London to enthusiastic support for the famous Clause 4 of the party constitu tion.
The Executive did not dare to court defeat from the conference and hurriedly changed their original line to one of support after saying that they did not understand several of the points to mean what the delegates who proposed them thought they meant,
This piece of sharp practice was followed by the results of the elections for the new Executive, Few changes took place but among them was the election in the trade-union section of Richard Fletcher, editor of the rankeand=file paper Voice of the Unions, and the elec~ tion to the standing orders committee of Lltyd Harrington, who has been stopped by the National Executive from fighting any winnable parliamentary seat,
An inoonclusive debate took place on ideas for the reform of the structure of the parties throughout the new Greater London Council Area, No vote was taken this year, but it is evident that some layers of the bureaucracy will attempt to” concentrate local administrative powers at borough party level, where national policies cannot be dis-~ cussed, and leave the constituency partios, hitherto the main unit of organization, to concentrate solely on adopting parliamentary candi-~ dates and sending delegates to the national annual conference, This may make tho disciplinary work of the bureaucrats easier, but it is hardly likely to produce an informed, self-confident and active rank and file.
The highlight of the election demonstration was a one=hour, televised attack in bitter, withering terms on the Tory Loadorship by Harold Wilson, It is clear that whatever doubts the party rank and file may have about the moderate programme of the national leadership for the coming general eleotion are being swamped by an able and vigorous attack on the incompetence of the Tory party as an adminis~ trative machine and its servility to its capitalist paymasters,
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Although not a single mention was made of any concrete item in the eleotion programme, the conference was driven to a high pitch of enthusiasm by references to the Tory leader (Home) such as the following:
"He -- or his scriptwriters, one can never be sure which these days -- aocuse us of trying to talk this country into an economic crisis. . .. Really, this is very childish, Is he suggesting that after twelve years with his Government in unchallenged power, with the most favourable international economic situation we have known for fifty years, the economy is so brittle and vulnerable that anybody's talk can plunge it into crisis? He tells us repeatodly that the economic position has never been stronger, But he refuses to give us the facts -~ assuming anyone has had the grace to tell him what they are =~ about our balance of payments,
"In terms of Britaints economic strength, the greatest liability you can have is an irresponsible Prime Minister. If anyone is talk= ing this country into a crisis, it is the Prime Minister,"
Wilson was given three standing ovations,