On January 11th. the Guardian leaked extracts from Reg Underhill's report on so-called 'infiltration' into the Labour Party. The reasons for printing the report - shelved by the NEC for over 4 years - were as a "contribution to the growing debate".
The real reason for the Guardian's interest in this cold chicken, however. was revealed in the editorial on the same day. It was a call to party "moderates" to take arms to save it from what it called "the teachings of Trotsky". In other words, it was a call for a witch-hunt.
To back up its clarion-call, it prominently featured right-wing David Owen's speech at the Labour for Victory meeting in Newcastle which singled out the Militant current for special treatment. Warning of "authoritarian" attitudes, he called on Labour moderates to close ranks to freeze them out of any office.
SURPRISE The fact that the Guardian should rush to the support of Labour's right-wing is, of course, no surprise. The capitalist press has always shrieked loudly on their behalf whenever it looked as if the party might become even moderately responsive to the interests of working people.
The resounding slap in the face Callaghan received at the last conference -of the party with many of the anti-Tory struggles now taking place -are clearly seen as danger signs. Such a trend could increasingly -they are only too aware - isolate the social democrats (already talking of a "third party").
The aim of these revelations is not only, however, to rally the right before it is too late. They realise how isolated they already are. It is also to split the left by Callaghan, they have more in "authoritarian" left.
DEMOCRACY
Such an attack is, of course, launched under the fig-leaf of the right-wing are the natural democratic for 300-odd MPs to calmly overturn conference - and the identification millions of Labour voters.
for these 300-odd MPs.
bankers and monopolists - to of working people who put them into office in the first place.
over the mouths of those who the Tories so eloquently from the platform - continue to reflect this feeling and use March 9th as a springboard for an ongoing mass anti-cuts campaign?
The outlook hardly favours optimism. While the TUC has declared its support for a "conthe cuts, it has been a campaign to implement the cuts or on trade unionists to take strike action against them.
WARNING On the contrary, figures like Callaghan - while mouthing critiissued stern warnings against the unions using any "industrial social services. Respect for the "law" figures much larger in their minds than the livelihood of working people.
leaders seems to be to contain the £1.00 "protest' £40.00 weak-kneed appeals to wait for the £1.00 return of a Labour government in £5.00 5 years' time. £2.00 $2.50 too surprising. How indeed can £103.00 Callaghan be expected to lead an effective opposition to the cuts when he himself, in office, was protest. represent. debate.
warning the Tribunites that, whatever differences they may have with common with him than with the elementary right.
DEFENCE preserving "democracy", of which custodians. It is, you see, perfectly decisions representing the wishes of for them.
It is equally perfectly democratic - collaborating with unelected civil servants, launch attacks against the millions And it is even more democratic, it seems, to stick a strip of cellotape will not succeed. are pursuing?
THRUST certed campaign of action" against long on words and short on action.
At no time have the labour leaders called on Labour councils to refuse it, "removed"
cism of the Tory proposals - have muscle" to defend their jobs or the The main concern of the labour actions combined with Such an attitude, of course, isn't - not the end their tracks.
out of the back door. Democracy, in the eyes of these Liberal allies of the Labour right-wing, obviously entails the minority dictating to the majority and the unceremonious shutting up of those who dare ALTERNATIVE Unfortunately for the Guardian -and its scare tactics - many Labour and trade union activists are learning to view democracy in a different light. They are learning that democracy means MPs abiding by the wishes of those millions of members in the party which they It means creating a mechanism to ensure that those MPs, once elected, will not be able to get away with calmly overturning the decisions of the Labour movement passed after a long and democratic And it means ensuring, for all currents in the labour movement, the right to present its ideas for debate free from witch-hunts, gags and censure motions. Freedom of speech, while it may be alien to the Guardian's notion of "democracy", is being seen more and more by thousands of labour activists as an Whatever differences may be held with the Militant current, it is in the interests of all labour party members to defend their right to express their views and argue freely The real enemies of democracy in the labour movement are not currents such as these. It is those forces backed by newspapers such as the Guardian which would like to maintain their bureaucratic grip over the party by the witch-hunting and expulsion of currents they disagree with. It is up to us all in the labour party to show them they prepared to slash the social services and hold down the wages of the low-paid? How can he be expected to stop the Tories when he sympathises with the very policies they The Labour leaders must not be allowed, however, to get away with uttering their toothless threats against the Tories combined with appeals for the return of a rightwing Labour government. They have to be forced now into building a real fighting campaign against the Tories or else — as Ted Knight (Leader of Lambeth Council) put "No cuts in the public sector! No rate increases!" "No redundancies — for the 35-hour week". These are the demands that have to be taken up in a real, fighting campaign against the Tories.
Such demands have to be taken into trade unions and Labour Party branches to mandate Labour Councils, up and down the country, to follow the lead given by Lambeth and refuse to introduce the Tory hatchet-work for them.
More importantly, the Labour leaders have to be called upon to mobilise the whole Labour movement behind them. March 9th must become the beginning - of a real united labour movement campaign to halt the Tories in