Moderates and Militants in British Labour Politics       [1986]

[This article was carried in  the March 1986 issue of the “Irish Democrat”. The Trotskyite Militant Tendency group had come to dominate Liverpool City Council in the mid-1980s. It adopted an illegal “deficit budget” which committed it to spending millions more than its income. This led to conflict with the then Conservative Government, massive attention in the national media and eventual disqualification from office. This led to the Labour Party leadership expelling members of the Militant Tendency from the party. At the same time Labour was proposing a “dream ticket” of “moderate” candidates in the hope of winning the next general election.]

Moderates and Militants: An article offered for discussion

A shaft of bright light was let in on the mental processes of Labour’s right-wing dream ticketers when it was reported that Roy Hattersley had declared that the crackdown on the Militant Tendency would win a million votes in the next election. 

There are a number of interesting assumptions inherent in that statement. No doubt Mr Hattersley wants to do what is right; but he is pleased when what is right looks profitable. To win those votes the issue needs to be blown up. Everybody must know what they have been saved from. So short shrift for Audrey Wise’s advice [Labour MP for Preston, Lancashire]  not to make it a hanging matter. And what if the Liverpool Labour Party is torn to shreds? Local organisation does not win elections. That is done on television. The dream-ticket makes up the party policy on television as it goes along, and The Guardian comments quite coolly that policy-making has passed from the conference to the presidential leader.

Now several times in the last few months people have said to me that Neil Kinnock has the making of the most disastrous Labour leader since Ramsay MacDonald. He is where he is because of Mr Foot’s determination to ditch Mr Benn. And he is the apotheosis of opportunism. His sole, solitary, single-mindedly pursued objective is to win office. What is to happen when he wins it is a secondary matter.

The calculation seems to be that the old, the unemployed, the ethnic minorities are a captive vote. They have to vote Labour as they have nowhere else to return. Therefore their interests can be ignored; they’ll be grateful for whatever scraps are thrown to them. The big thing is to “capture the middle ground”. That is considered a more feasible object than convincing the doubters.

Of course there is a limit to the process. A point comes when the captive vote is captive no more – it is simply not used. But even the loss of traditional support by abstention is regarded as less dangerous than risking the kind of press, radio and television campaign that was waged against Mr Benn [Left-wing Labour MP]. Mr Kinnock’s first act as leader was to insult the Greeks for not being nasty enough to the Russians. That showed he was a “safe man” and could be slotted up in the news rooms from a man “who could be mentioned” to a man “who should be mentioned favourably”, soaring far above the likes of poor “yours truly” who remains in the lowest bracket, among people “who must not be mentioned at all”.

For the Irish, who thought that hard work had persuaded the Labour Party away from bi-partisanship, the sight of those independent-minded, deep-thinking socialists flocking into the Tory lobby for the Anglo-Irish Agreement, was an unpleasant shock. It was an unhappy reminder that our sole sanction is to do nothing. And that is the question. Is there any sense in voting for these people? If they know they are getting your votes no matter how often and  how scandalously they sell you, why should they pay the slightest attention to you?

This is a problem for the Irish community. After Roy Mason’s appalling record, and James Callaghan’s alliance with the Unionists, many Irish people swore they would never vote Labour again. That probably lost Labour as many votes as Mr Hattersley hopes to win by bashing the “Militant Tendency”.

Now, returning to them, of course they’re cranky. They used to share a building with the Connolly Association at 374  Grays Inn Road. They left the door of their room open once. You would be blinded. Every mortal object, chairs, tables, wall-paper, ceiling and floor, was painted bright red. The flames of hell wouldn’t have shown up against it. Later they took on a lease of the whole building and became our landlords. They were very good landlords, fair play to them.

Now all that red shows their outlook. Every issue, whether it is national independence, racial equality, sex equality, culture or ecology – anything in short that is not simon-pure socialism – is regarded as an irrelevance. That’s why they want the British Labour Party to start up in the Six Counties. And they were discussing it, though somehow we think the enthusiasm will have cooled more recently. They could enjoy a bit of the “peace” that has come out of the Hillsborough deal, but we doubt if they’d get many votes …. Mr Hattersleyas wouldn’t get a million by joining the Orange Order. 

Of course the essential fact that all these ultra-left factions miss is that politics mean input into history. Society is like a ship endowed with its own momentum. It is in motion. And that motion can only be changed when it is recognised. One may not like the Hobsbawm package [The view expressed by communist historian Eric Hobsbawm that Labour’s support base had changed because of contemporary changes in the working class] which one suspects Mr Kinnock is working for, but it is founded on an estimate of what the motion of society actually is. The assumption  is that the power of the traditional Labour vote is declining. So its alienation doesn’t matter that much.

The Ultra-Left never attempts such estimations. Actions derive from abstract and eternal principles, not from the necessities of a class struggle which is actually in progress, and which may of course be rightly or wrongly interpreted.

Of course if you get down to a real attempt to measure the motion of the boat you need one vital qualification. You must have an outlook that is fully international. The supreme fact of modern society is that transnational agglomerates are driving for absolute economic dominion. While favouring occasional privileged minorities, they are driving down the standard of living of the majority wherever they have established effective control. They are destroying democracy at international, national and local levels. They are tearing apart the ecology of the planet, with nobody knows what probable biological and climatic effects. They are enforcing the most ruinous and dangerous arms race in the history of mankind, which may lead to the extinction of the human race.

One would think it should not be beyond the wit of man to bring all these recognised facts into one focus and persuade all affected sections to unite for a government that would change direction. Well, it’s not the wit that is short. It is the courage. It would be necessary to fight the City of London, dark den of sharks and swindlers. And who would be the doughtiest supporters in the event  – the most unlikely event – of such a fight coming off? Labour’s traditional supporters, the industrial workers, the Irish, the other ethnic minorities, the people who suffer from the whole thing.

Now there’s one last thing. People have turned to the ultra-left because the dream-tickets are exactly what the Press called them, a dream ticket. They offer the public the dream that it is possible to solve the world’s problems in any substantial way without a fight against transnational finance. And we know exactly what results. Enraged with years of Toryism the public returns Labour. Labour pursues the same ultimate policy, takes enough off the financiers to annoy them, but not enough to harm them. After a few years the electorate is disillusioned and in go the Tories again.

And the conclusion is as simple as this. If Labour wants to disembarrass itself of the ultra-left it must itself do the job it was created for. Liverpool, once the second wealthiest city in the world, has been made derelict by transnational finance, and the people feel sore. The dream-ticket offers them more of the same and the minute they fight back  – admittedly not always wisely  – they are shot down for the sake of a million extra votes.  Militant, to quote a famous man [i.e.V.I.Lenin], is the punishment the dream ticketers have drawn on themselves by their opportunistic sins.