The defection right wing of the Labour Party in Islington and the Dy-elechon within inches of hijacking, victory have them, their first local council.
of DuDucation their first set of policy was warmly greeted by the press.
leader of Liberal has threatened to back SDP Candidates agamst tnose or his own party who don't the latest MORI opinion poll shows increased electoral support for such a Liberal/SDP link-up Up noW the response Labour left to these events has been Lavase these achievements, comparing them to previous split-offs the Labour Party which subsequently disappeared. Comparisons are made with Desmond Donnelly's Democratic Party which split in 1968, the Democratic Labour Association of DICK Taverne and the Scottish which Was formed in 1976.
But the SDP are much WORC formidable proposition. Apart from the and free publicity they receive from the press they are quietly confident of raising the tinancial port to enable their party to fight a general election.
*No serious efforts nave yel made CLU raise money. But I don't think that it would be inhibiting, factor.' (Roy Jenkins, Observer 8 March 1981.
The reasons for the enthusiastic sponsorship which the SDP has enjoyed compared previous right wing splits Labour Party against further democratic in the Labour Party by providing a stick the right wing the party to beat the left * to deprive the Labour Party of enough votes at both the general 1982 have Labour majority. * to provide insurance Tory vote in the next vote next general election.
For all these reasons, and tor the foreseeable future, the SDP is here to stay How should they be fought?
The SDP stick must be taken out of the hands of Healev. Shore and Hattersley and used to beat them with. Party, and that should deterrent, for Polaris and for continued membership of NATO He has made it clear that he will not serve in any Labour government committed to unilateral As against Labour Party policy Healey continues to be part of the pro-BEC lobby that has acknowledged cheer leaders, Jenkins, Owen, Rodgers and Williams.
In pleading the case for 'voluntary' incomes policy the SDP leaders are only proposing the same wage-cutting policy that was implemented Healey the Labour government.
It is Healey who is building and feeding support for the policies of the SDP, not the left. Healey's policies are the policies of the SDP. Disrepute On Labour Party democracy. Healey claims that the process decided by • the abour Party conference to elect its leaders has brought the party into disrepute and aided the growth of the SDP.
The most prominent of Healey's backers, James Callaghan, says the same thing, calling for a reversal of the reforms decided to restore to MPs the unchallenged right to dictate party policy in government.
But once again it is the right wing who are aiding the attacks of the SDP on the Labour Party by echoing their attacks on the of the StrUCture The threat of the SDP to take enough votes from Labour to prevent the Labour Party winning the next general election is one that needs petaken seriously. Given the changes in electoral boundaries and the growth of the SDP, Labour will have to win a victory similar to the landslide achieved 1945.
The way to beat the SDP threat is to start to build for this type of vic tory now. Last July's Warrington by-election, when the media ensured a high VULC for Roy Jenkins, showed that the only way to achieve such a victory is through mass political action, channelling the enthusiasm of the whole working class against the most unpopular Tory Cover cal since the se cond World War Part of the fight for a victory over the Tories and the SDP is the necessity for the next Labour ment to be committed to Who pulls the strings on Denis Healey? Plotters of the world unite - to keep the Labour At the weekend Tony Benn called the proposed alliance between the Liberals and the SDP game financed by City of London bankers terrified that Mrs Thatcher might turn out to be Britain's last Conservative prime minister.
The game is that those WHATEVER steps are taken by a Labour government actually challenges the right and the power of the capitalist class to invest where they want, to move their capital how they want, to sack workers as they want, will lead to a massive sabotage by the capitalists of the economy of this country'.
Pat Hickey, former deputy convenor at Rover Solihull, put his finger on the dilemma facing supporters of Tony Benn's alternative economic strategy in a debate last Saturday with Roy Hattersley and Audrey Wise in Birmingham.
We heard the right wing variant of the AES from Roy Hattersley, Birmingham MP now bidding to succeed Wilson, Callaghan and Foot as the next right wing leader of the Labour Party Hattersley pins his hopes for a revival of capitalism on a re-run 74-79 Labour government-incomes policy and all Audrey Wise, ex-Coventry MP, espouses Tony Benn's policies of plann ing agreements and state spending. Some of these policies we can support, like restoring the cuts, others we reject, like import controls.
But as a strategy, Benn's AES has a major flaw. As Pat Hickey, a Socialist Challenge supporter said: 'It does not say anything about how it is going to force the capitalist class to accept these planning agreements, these extensions of public ownership, in other words about how it is going to mobilise the strength of the working class.
The meeting, attended by 100 people, was organised by New Socialist magazine as part of a Week of Labour in the Birmingham area. Week of Labour debate culminates in the mass demonstration called by the Labour Party on unemployment this Saturday.
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IT'S been a good week for the Social Democratic give socialists cause to worry.
Labour debates strategy